Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton: Beating Rosberg in to Turn 1 crucial

Lewis Hamilton admits his focus has to be on beating team-mate Nico Rosberg in to Turn 1 at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Rosberg took his first pole position of the season at the Circuit de Catalunya, with Hamilton set to line up in second place having been on pole at the previous four races. Asked if the long run to the first corner gives him a better chance of beating his team-mate than at other circuits, Hamilton replied: “It helps but it’s not easy.

“Even if you don’t get a good start and you get in to the slipstream, the inside is generally blocked. Then when the car ahead knows you’re not going to go for the inside, he’s comfortable to be able to move out to give himself a good run in to Turn 1.

“It’s not very easy to dive down the outside at this circuit; it is for the cars behind because a car will stop and slow down the cars that are behind him. So here it is really about getting down the inside off the line. We’ve both got the exact same clutches so naturally we should have the same start. If I’m fresher and have a slightly better reaction time it might make a difference by the time we reach Turn 1, so that will be the goal.”

And Hamilton says he will be able to adopt a slightly different strategy to Rosberg but it will always disadvantage him in terms of the best possible approach to the race.

“There is no real policy. The policy is the same as it was last year, we’re allowed to race. The guy who is in front gets the optimum strategy and the guy behind gets a slightly different one. It’s generally always the same so it’s down to you to utilise it and to make up for the disadvantage of being behind.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.