Lewis Hamilton says
he is "determined to fight" for victory in
the Korean Grand Prix after finishing fifth in Japan.
With Fernando Alonso retiring Hamilton had an opportunity to significantly close
the gap to
the championship leader at Suzuka, but an understeering car in qualifying and
the first half of
the race restricted him to fifth place. By
the end of
the race, however, Hamilton said
he was pleased with his car and that has given him confidence that better pace will translate to Korea.
"
The car that I ended
the race with in Japan felt great - and I'm confident that
we'll kick off
the race weekend in Korea with a strong package," Hamilton said. "I put
the car on pole there last year. That was a very significant moment for me - I'd been trying so hard all year to get a pole, and it took everything I had to get
the best out of
the car. It was a huge effort, and a bit overwhelming at
the time."
Hamilton finished second last year despite a front wing issue, and having also been second in 2010
he believes
the key to going one better is having a clean weekend.
"In
the race, unfortunately,
we just didn't have
the pace to stay with Sebastian [Vettel] in
the Red Bull -
he was able to dive past me and pull away. I still managed to finish second, though: it was an unbelievably tough race - I had a handling problem because
the front wing was clogged up with tyre debris, so I had to try everything to keep Mark [Webber] behind me.
"I think
we've had
the potential to win both Korean Grands Prix in
the past, but I've never had a race weekend there on which everything has gone quite right for me.
We've got momentum on our side once again, so I head to Korea determined to fight for victory."
___________________________________
I'm still wondering how
the car could suddenly hit form during a race when
the first 20 laps it was suffering with loads of understeer. No conspiracy...but technically, is this possible?
