Spotless Win For Hamilton At U.S. Grand Prix |
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Topics: Lewis Hamilton, United States Grand Prix
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Anthony Fontanelle
June 19, 2007
BMW Sauber’s Lewis Hamilton had relative ease in winning the Canadian race. But in Indianapolis, he fought every inch of his second consecutive success to beat Fernando Alonso by just 1.5s after a spellbinding, nerve-racking race.
“What a dream! To come to two circuits that I didn’t know, my first time, to really come out with such pace, to see the team moving forward always and being competitive and just to see how much work the team back home, back in Brixworth, in Woking, in Stuttgart, how hard they all work to produce the car and to develop it – they’ve done a fantastic job and I’m really just so thankful to them because it wouldn’t be possible without them. And the guys here, they are a great bunch of guys. They’ve done a fantastic job on strategy, setting up the car. So really, it’s a perfect team and I’m really happy I could put the icing on the cake,” said Hamilton.
Asked about Alonso’s pressure on lap 38, the 22-year-old Briton said: “I think the first stint, the first couple of laps it was extremely close and then obviously I managed to pull out a slight gap and maintain that and then going into the middle stint, the out lap… the first two laps were very good and then my tyres just decided to grain so maybe I pushed too hard on them immediately so Fernando was right up my tail, and it was extremely difficult.”
He added, “Obviously he’s in my slipstream the whole time so he would always catch me down the straight and so whatever I gained midfield I lose on the straight, so it was very very tough. But he fought very well, very professional and at the end I managed to pull a gap and I was able to maintain that gap and control the rest of the race.”
Alonso note, “I think at the start it was also very close but I didn’t manage to overtake Lewis and from then on, when you follow someone, you lose a little bit of downforce and it’s difficult to get the tyres in the condition to push all through the stint because you damage the tyres maybe a little bit more when you run behind someone. I think I tried in the middle stint, and I was side-by-side once, here on the main straight but again, it was not enough to overtake him and the last stint was just a conservative one. It was very difficult to overtake, very difficult to follow anyone so I just started thinking of the French Grand Prix.”
The Spaniard continued: “The start is always risky. Eight points are better than nothing so… we increased the gap to Ferrari which is one of the main things in this first part of the championship.”
Hamilton’s second triumph increases his lead in the drivers’ championship to ten points over Alonso, while McLaren are now 35 points above Ferrari in the constructors’ title fight.
Next to Alonso were Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen. Sunday’s race was a small reward for BMW Sauber, as Nick Heidfeld, heading for a possible fourth, was troubled by power steering and gearbox problems that prompted his early retirement with a hydraulics failure on lap 59. Meanwhile, the team’s Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica’s temporary replacement, made the most of his Formula One debut with a first-rate drive to eighth at Indy’s race. Aged just 19, Vettel becomes the youngest driver to score a world championship point. BMW rotors and cutting-edge race parts greatly contributed in making his Sunday’s race exceptional.
Source: Amazines.com