Outpaced at the end of the day’s two practice sessions by Nico Rosberg, the reigning world champion is concerned about the pace of his rivals. Red Bull and Ferrari both seem to be faster than in the previous weekends, he indicated to journalists this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The first Free Practice session, conducted with prime tires, is his main concern: the closest pursuer, Daniel Ricciardo in his Red Bull, is only 0.049 seconds behind. In the afternoon, there was a 0.302-second gap between the two men, with soft tires this time. With Daniil Kvyat and Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen lurking just behind and a Sebastian Vettel with normally interesting room for improvement, Hamilton expects a tough challenge from the two teams for Sunday’s race.<\/p>\n
\u00ab I expect a good fight this weekend. \u00bb Paradoxically, the Englishman is not too worried about his deficit compared to his teammate. \u00ab It’s a very difficult track to find an advantage over your teammate. I think I have a bit of time to gain at turn 1 (La Source). I also lost time in the two main straights, which doesn’t mean much to me. \u00bb<\/p>\n
In response to these remarks, Daniel Ricciardo played it down. The Australian driver is taking a more measured approach, stating that Mercedes and Hamilton are creating excitement artificially: “They create a bit of excitement while they seem far above the rest. Our lap times are much slower than theirs; there’s at least half a second difference per lap. Anything can happen, especially on this track, but I’m not as excited as Mercedes.”<\/p>\n
Ricciardo’s statements are corroborated by a lack of grip observed at the rear of his car and that of his teammate, Daniil Kvyat. This issue seems to have been plaguing the Austrian team since the start of the 2015 season, particularly on high-speed tracks. \u00ab It seems quite uncertain to be honest. We haven’t found a real solution to this problem in the recent Grand Prix. We have grip but we can’t use it to maximum benefit, \u00bb lamented the Russian.<\/p>\n
Two completely different tones are therefore used by Hamilton and Ricciardo. Nonetheless, we can commend the attitude of the driver of the number 44 Mercedes, in creating a semblance of rivalry at the top of the hierarchy. As a reminder, the Red Bull team only clinched its first podium of the season at the end of the last Grand Prix in Hungary, with Kyvat and Ricciardo finishing second and third respectively. The challenge is to see if the Austrian team can maintain this success in the long term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although placed in the top two positions both in the morning and afternoon, the Mercedes team might be threatened by Red Bull and Ferrari. At least that’s the impression of Lewis Hamilton following the Free Practice sessions. This observation seems exaggerated from the Austrian team and Daniel Ricciardo’s perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":39298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[841,1334,1494],"class_list":["post-13030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-hamilton","tag-red-bull","tag-spa-francorchamps"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n