Lewis Hamilton was stunned by Red Bull’s pace in today’s Korea Grand Prix qualifying session.
The 25-year-old Formula 1 driver from Herts will start tomorrow’s inaugural grand prix in Korea from the second row of the grid.
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ former world champion was fourth best in qualifying behind the flying Red Bull pairing of pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, and the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.
He will start on the dirtier side of the dusty Korean International Circuit in a do-or-die race for his faltering world title hopes.
Hamilton had been one of the quickest in practice and was fastest in Q1 at the newly-laid track in Yeongam.
However, Hamilton was blown away in the final stages of qualifying by the mighty Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber – lapping almost half a second slower.
We were very quick in practice, so I don’t know where the Red Bulls found an extra half a second in Q3!"Still, it’s important to remember that we’re still in the fight: we make good starts, and there are some long straights here, which should suit us."
Hamilton fared better than team-mate Jenson Button, who struggled a bit with locking fronts and rears and could only qualify seventh.
"It’s going to be a bit tough tomorrow [Sunday], whatever the weather does," said the defending F1 world champion.
But the good news is that I’ll be starting from the clean side of the grid, and there are a couple of long straights after the first corner, so it’ll be a fun first lap!McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh added: "The conditions in qualifying today [Saturday] were pretty challenging – low-grip Tarmac combined with low-ish track temperatures – and as a result it was difficult to get the tyres up to the optimal operating temperature fast enough.
"Both our drivers drove sensibly and well to get safely through to Q3 – and, once there, we elected to give them each two single-lap runs.
"They drove very good laps but as things turned out it wasn’t easy to nail a time on a single lap."
