Belgian Grand Prix: Fastest in practice Lewis Hamilton makes intentions clear ahead of 200th race
Lewis Hamilton prepared for his 200th Formula One race with plenty of confidence and the fastest time in Belgian Grand Prix practice on Friday, before rain brought an early end to the day’s action.
The Mercedes title contender, who can equal Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 pole positions in Saturday’s qualifying, lapped the longest track on the calendar with a best time of one minute 44.753 seconds.
“Today felt like one of our strongest Fridays so far this season,” said the Briton, who is 14 points behind Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel with nine races remaining. The car felt strong all round, straight out of the box. We made some good steps with the set-up right from the start of FP1 (first practice), which is a really encouraging way to kick off the weekend. It looks tight at the top on the long-run pace, but we’ve started the weekend in the best way possible.”
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who had been fastest in the morning session with a time of 1:45.502 on ultra-soft tyres while Hamilton stayed on softs, was second on the timesheets with an afternoon best that was 0.262 slower than the Briton.
Hamilton also used the ultra-softs to set his best time before …read more
