Lewis Hamilton says Red Bull's advantage over the rest of the F1
field has narrowed in recent races. The Briton beat Max Verstappen
to pole position for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix by just 0.003
seconds, representing the first time he will line up first on an F1
grid since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. While Red Bull have
won all ten races so far in 2023, Hamilton suggested that the
drinks-backed squad do not have as much of an advantage as they had
earlier in the year, with other teams having delivered upgrades to
their 2023 mounts. Red Bull have introduced an update of their own
for this weekend, prompting Hamilton to ponder how they failed to
secure pole position. "Honestly, I think [Red Bull] have slowed
down quite a bit from the beginning of the year," Hamilton told Sky
F1 . "They've still got the DRS, [but] they don't have the DRS
advantage all of a sudden that they used to have. Where did that
go? "But they've just had an upgrade, so we expected them to have
taken another step. We heard it was around two-tenths or something
like that, so for them to not have been able to extract that in
Qualifying is interesting." Hamilton: Red Bull still favourites
However, despite their failure to take pole position, the Briton
cautioned that Verstappen and Red Bull would still be favourites to
win Sunday's 70-lap race. Hamilton also reserved praise for his
former team McLaren, who have followed up their strong showing at
the British Grand Prix with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lining
up third and fourth on Sunday's grid. "I think in the race [Red
Bull are] still the quickest and it will be very hard to beat
them," said Hamilton. "We're just as surprised as everybody else,
but definitely interesting to see some of the deficits and how it's
changed from race to race and how we've all closed up, and super
happy to see McLaren in there."
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