© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Lewis Hamilon says “a one-two would be spectacular” for Mercedes at the Russian Grand Prix, considering Max Verstappen will start from the back of the grid.
Max Verstappen was supposed to serve a three-place grid penalty at the Russian Grand Prix, for his Italian Grand Prix collision with Lewis Hamilton.
However, since Red Bull decided to swap Verstappen’s engine, the penalty will be neutralised because he will have to start from the back of the grid, due to it being his fourth power unit of the year.
After the first two free practice session Lewis was asked to give his thoughts on Max’s penalty.
“It doesn’t really change anything for us, we’ve just got to do our thing and focus on moving forward,” said the Briton
“It’s a tough year for everyone with reliability, so we’ve got to naturally capitalise on that, get the maximum result. A one-two would be spectacular for us as a team.”
Since Valtteri Bottas was ahead of Lewis in the practice sessions, the Briton is careful when assessing his chances for a win.
“If you look at the list of tracks there are some that are super exceptional and that are generally Valtteri circuits, and some vice versa.
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“This is an okay track for me. It’s not my best track but it’s not my worst, but there are definitely things I can pinpoint from the data.
“It’s more with set up mostly, and probably a little bit with the driving, so I’ll work on things tonight.”
Ultimately Lewis was happy with Friday’s running.
“It seems like we’ve started off on the right foot. As we always try and progress, the first run in the first session was the best, and we’ve been migrating and adjusting since and it’s not been as good as that one, as we started to push more, I guess.
“But generally a good session pace-wise. We’ve got some work to do, probably on the long run. Tomorrow’s going to be raining a lot, a big wet day, so it will be interesting to see what we do in terms of set up for that, knowing that potentially Sunday is dry.
“But we definitely ticked off everything we could through the sessions, very clean sessions, no issues.
“We made the changes we wanted, the car’s not perfect but we will work on it,” concluded the seven-time champion.
