Red Bull has a “better set of cards” to play in Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix but Mercedes can do something “unique” to win, says poleman Lewis Hamilton.
After earning a come-from-behind victory against Red Bull in Bahrain, Hamilton topped qualifying at Imola to the surprise and delight of his team.
However, team-mate Valtteri Bottas had a bad final part of qualifying and will only line up eighth, while the Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen start second and third.
Bottas struggled with tyre warm-up and was only 0.007s faster in Q3 than he went on mediums in Q2. Had he matched his Q1 laptime, he’d have qualified fourth.
Hamilton said it was very different to past experiences, and that he couldn’t remember the last time the Red Bulls were both so close to Mercedes.
Verstappen and Perez’s predecessor Alex Albon sandwiched the Mercedes drivers in last year’s Abu Dhabi finale but Bottas was also in the lead group in that race.
“If we’re able to get off in order then they obviously have a bit of a better set of cards in terms of strategy,” said Hamilton.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t pull out something unique and do something different.
“I’m not really sure what happened with Valtteri. It’s very hard to overtake here so obviously we probably won’t have the support of him early on.
“Maybe he will make it through but otherwise we’ve just got to focus on our job and try and do absolutely everything and more to keep these lads behind.”
Mercedes won the season opener by splitting the strategies of Hamilton and Bottas and winning track position for Hamilton with an early pitstop, while Verstappen was vulnerable as Perez started from the pitlane because of a technical problem on the formation lap (having qualified poorly to begin with).
But Perez could be particularly threatening at the start of the Imola race, in the initial launch and early in the first stint, because he will be starting on soft tyres.
Imola is a low-severity circuit and with cool conditions expected, the soft tyre is not considered much worse than the medium.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said that gave Red Bull a second key weapon, in addition to having two cars against Hamilton.
“It’s an advantage they have,” he said.
“Normally starting on the soft is probably not as good but here it’s an offset strategy and is not much worse than starting on the medium.
“With two cars, we know that it’s always an advantage and then offset strategies gives them another shot.”
As Perez has been struggling to adapt to the Red Bull he felt the low-risk nature of starting on softs meant it was worth avoiding the usual frontrunning strategy of clearing Q2 on mediums so he could instead bank the extra running on the softest compound in qualifying – a move he felt was key to his shock front row result.
“We felt as a team that the soft is nowhere near what it was last year, so it’s a good race tyre,” said Perez.
“And it was very important and crucial for me to get that learning, that consistency and that progression.
“Last time, I missed Q3 and really getting those laps, getting in that mood with the car is very important for me to be able to put it [right] when it matters.
“I needed this clean qualifying, whether or not it is the right or wrong strategy I think it’s not much between them. So, we are definitely in the game.”
He added: “I think we have a fantastic car for the race. We are on a different strategy to Lewis and I think as a team we are going to be pushing pretty hard and hopefully a Red Bull wins.”
Wolff reckoned Bahrain poleman Verstappen would have been on pole again in Italy but for his ‘lawnmowing’ error exiting Tamburello on his final run.
Verstappen was cautious about predicting Red Bull’s chances even in a two-against-one situation versus Hamilton, but admitted that with “two cars close to Lewis [and Perez] on different tyres hopefully that will get some excitement tomorrow”.
“Of course we have to wait and see what is going to happen but it’s going to be interesting what can be done,” said Verstappen.
“Not only with that but also what the weather is going to do, if there is a bit of rain or not.
“Hopefully, in the race, it will be close again.”
