Formula One news

Hamilton didn't expect to be so competitive

Lewis Hamilton was a bit surprised to qualify himself on the second row of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix grid. The Briton wasn't extremely pleased with his car after this morning's free practice session but in the end managed to get the car working.

Speaking about his qualifying session Hamiton said: "We didn't expect to be as competitive as we were this afternoon. Our car was tricky this morning and we had to make some significant changes between sessions. It was impossible to extract the best from the car, especially through the first sector. We didn't have much time to develop a dry set-up so we went into qualifying hoping that the changes would work - and they did.

"I've said it before, but I really love this circuit, it's so much fun and has such history and character; I feel honoured and overwhelmed to be driving where the great drivers of the past have raced. I would love to win here tomorrow, and I'll do everything I can to do so: I'll drive my heart out. Although the Red Bull will be very hard to beat, there's a long run down to Turn One and our KERS is working better than ever. Sebastian has more to worry about than I do, too. He'll be looking at the world championship, I'm just here to have a good time and score some points for my team to help us move further up the constructors' championship table."

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