BARCELONA (Spain): Lewis Hamilton secured his fourth pole position this year and 150th front row start on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s 50th Spanish Grand Prix.
But championship leader and six-time champion said that that the “job is not done yet”.
He outpaced his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas by 0.059 seconds to claim his fifth pole in Spain and increase his career total to a record 92 poles.
“It’s such a long way down to Turn One here, so the job is not done, that’s for sure,” said Hamilton. “It’s very hard to follow here, the positioning is good, but it will be hard from pole position. But that’s what I’ve got to work on to get the best that I can.”
Yet despite racing at a track where 15 of the last 19 Formula One races have been won from pole – and where Mercedes have taken the last eight poles since 2013 – the Briton was keen to make sure none of his team take anything for granted.
Hamilton said he had hoped to improve his lap time in the top ten shootout, in the final part of qualifying, but like close rival Bottas found he was unable to do so.
“I couldn’t go quicker on my second lap, which I thought I could, but this wasn’t a great lap – luckily the first one was decent, I guess, which did the job, thankfully.
“But these guys do such an awesome job and we are constantly learning. I was here with the guys until 10 o’clock last night just looking over all the details on how can we can improve, what are the areas, particularly for the race, where we can get better because these Red Bull are super fast.”
