© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Lewis Hamilton managed to snatch pole from Valtteri Bottas at the Tuscan Grand Prix Qualifying, despite the Finn dominating all free practice sessions.
Hamilton, however, says this wouldn’t have happened had he not done the preparation work.
“In my past I always felt that my strength was learning a circuit quite quickly,” said Hamilton.
“And for this one, we went on the simulator, which I never do, and [I] don’t feel like I benefitted particularly.
“But then getting here there was a lot of work that… the pressure was incredibly high.
“Because I’m going out there doing laps and I’m struggling to find the limit in certain sectors. And Valtteri was miles ahead, really, in some of those areas.
“So [it felt like] the pressure was higher than ever because if I hadn’t done the work then I wouldn’t have got the result that we got at the end.”
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Hamilton then went into more detail about the work him and his team did to master the Mugello Circuit.
“Last night [was spent] dissecting every single detail basically, each sector – really trying to fine-tune that set-up.
“As a racing driver there’s a real fine line between knowing whether [something is] understeer or oversteer – and whether you’re on the limit or not in certain places.
“Because you can be on the limit through one corner but not through the rest of the corners.
“For example, it could be the first one or then not the second one and then the third one you are – and so [it’s about] really understanding whether you’ve got the balance right within yourself and then knowing what you do need.
“For what to request for when you do move towards the limit – to pre-empt what the car is going to do.
“There’s a real science to it and that’s why I have so much respect for these drivers – because it’s not only the ability to drive, but to understand those things and to be engineers at the end of the day.
“You have to work with these geniuses that can balance numbers like nobody else – but we need to be able to do that on the track,” concluded Hamilton.
