Lewis Hamilton insists he put everything he had into qualifying in Monaco, and in the end he couldn’t make up for the McLaren’s current downforce defficiency. Hamilton will start tomorrow’s race from fifth on the grid.
“I touched all the barriers I could touch and used all the road I could use,” he said. “I’m happy with my performance, we got through it, and tomorrow we believe the car will be competitive in the race, and hopefully it’s an interesting race where we can make some steps forward.
“It definitely is the best that we could do, I really did put everything into all those three qualifying sessions. Especially my last lap, I got every ounce of the car that was there. There was no more I could get. We’re literally lacking downforce – we need a good step on some downforce to keep up with the Red Bulls.
“I definitely expected them to be the fastest, and I expected the Ferraris to be competitive. The Red Bull has so much downforce. I don’t think people understand it, but when he boots the power he just has full throttle so much quicker than me, and carries much more speed through these corners. It gives you so much confidence. But we’re getting there, we’ll keep pushing, and I’m hoping in the next couple of races we’ll begin to close the gap.”
“The guys in front of me, it is very close. It is not so close from us to the Red Bulls, but with the other guys we’re not so far off. I think tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. I don’t know what the weather is going to do. If it’s a dry race it’s pretty straightforward, you can’t overtake here, but hopefully the strategy might come in to play.”
Hamilton is known for his overtaking abilities, but he concedes that the chances are slim: “There’s coming out of the tunnel, but even that is almost impossible. You have to outbrake the guy on the dirty surface and probably lock up your tyres and cross the chicane, then you have to let him past you. It’s very, very tricky. It’s not impossible, but it’s quite risky.”
Adam Cooper F1 
I find it strange that Renault-powered cars seem to have that little “extra” that others don’t have. Red Bull, OK, but Renault F1’s form has also been somewhat of a surprise so far. Since it appears that at least part of the Red Bull advantage might be somehow exhaust-related, could it be that Renault F1 is using a similar bit of engineering? At least some Renault personnal must be quite familiar with the Red Bull exhaust configuration, or whatever makes the back end of the RB6 glued to the track.
I don’t think the Redbull is as low on power as Redbull make out, not far off, last year when the engine was supposedly what let the team down, the end of year HP figures wern’t bad at all.
An it’s apparently very drivable, though the Mercedes is know for that too, an the fuel efficiency at the beggining of the races has got to count for alot as well.
Anyway, can’t wait for the engine freeze to be over, as the engines get more an more fuel efficient, the race pace is going to get more an more flat out, we’ll have crazy fast races, especially if the new tyre supplier makes them hard enough to avoid conservation races being the norm.
Still best thing to do we all know, ban wings woosh.