Lewis Hamilton celebrates Vettel's Canada pole

Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton celebrates Vettel's Canada pole

He's really, really, really happy.

Martin Macdonald

Sunday 9 June 2019 08:15

Lewis Hamilton reckons Sebastian Vettel’s pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday is actually good for Formula 1, and insists he is “really, really, really happy” that the German finally broke his streak of 17 races withing finishing qualifying as fastest driver.

So far in 2019 Mercedes have had it all their own way, winning every race with Hamilton winning four and Valtteri Bottas winning two.

These victories have came after a pole position gained, and it looked like they would get another in Canada as Hamilton took the fastest time with moments to go, only for Vettel to pip him to pole in dramatic fashion.

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The five-time world champion was untroubled at losing out on P1, though, and even proclaimed his happiness at the result.

“I’m actually really, really happy for Seb,” said Hamilton.

“He clearly did a really great lap.

“My first lap was really good and it felt great for a second to be on pole particularly because I missed all of P2 yesterday so quite far behind starting today. But it’s been a really solid day from us.

“I love being able to fight with another team and today was just so close. I had no idea where we were going to be.

It's the first pole of the season for Seb 💪

And just LISTEN to how much it means to @ScuderiaFerrari 😍#CanadianGP 🇨🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/9H6e0eQRSj
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 8, 2019

“At some stages they were ahead of us, we were swapping all the way so that’s how I hope that this is a turning point for them and it’s going to be very close from now on because if we can have a serious battle throughout the season that would be fantastic.”

Throughout practice and qualifying, Ferrari displayed their speed on the straights which ultimately allowed Vettel to claim pole, and Hamilton believes the team have finally found their “party mode.”

“Obviously in the last sector, I think you can now start writing that they have the party mode,” he suggested.

“I don’t know who told Seb we had the party mode in the beginning but their end-of-straight speed was particularly where we lost out in the last sector.

“I think all weekend they’ve had really great pace,” he said. “The large part of it [was] they were like six-tenths up on the straights, so we fought so hard throughout the weekend to try to make improvements.”