Lewis Hamilton is aging like a fine wine. The Briton put in yet another masterclass today at qualifying in Imola after his against-all-odds victory in Bahrain. After taking pole position, he had a hearty exchange over the team radio. And he’s explained the reason why.

Red Bull were the favorites going into the qualifying session. However, Hamilton managed to usurp both the Red Bull drivers and took a relatively unexpected pole position.

So, when he completed his final lap and his race engineer, Peter Bonnington, informed him of this, he was pleasantly surprised with his own performance. Especially considering his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, qualified all the way back in the eighth position.

“Honestly, we haven’t hyped it up too much. The fact is, you saw it in the last race, that there was a good gap to the Red Bulls. We did feel that we can close it up a little bit, coming into this weekend,” said Hamilton in the post-qualifying press conference.

“But, that was a really clean qualifying session. I guess, time and time again, be tweaking and adjusting in terms of my own performance. I am really grateful that I am making steps in the right direction.”

“It was a real surprise – no one in the team expected to be on pole today,” claimed Hamilton.

But Lewis Hamilton may be in for trouble tomorrow

However, going into the race tomorrow, he may need to cut the celebrations and get back to the drawing board. Red Bull brought Perez into the team to form a tandem to attack Mercedes. With Bottas all the way back, the Austrian outfit can play around with their strategies to pressure Hamilton.

Team Principal Toto Wolff also admitted to the difficulties that they were going to face on Sunday –

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“The soft tyre is much better from the start. Perez is also handling the tyres well, although he will still have to change sooner. But it’s always bad to be between two opponents with one car, especially if they have a different strategy, that makes it extra difficult for tomorrow.”

Well, we have seen Hamilton defy the odds time and time again. He has to bring together all his might tomorrow to fend off the challenge from Red Bull.

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