Oddly, nemesis Fernando Alonso defended McLaren’s strategy call on qualifying, while Lewis Hamilton was angry with his team.<\/p>\n
“The engineers advised we should do one run at the end of Q3 and I didn’t contest it,” rued the Briton, disrupted by the Sergio Perez red flag and his seventh quickest time becoming just ninth on the grid due to jumping a chicane.<\/p>\n
“Here you can’t take risks like leaving it right to the end.\u00a0 You can’t win from there but I won’t give up,” said Hamilton.<\/p>\n
It was therefore odd to hear Alonso with words of near-encouragement for Hamilton, his track nemesis, and the strategists at McLaren, a team he fell out with badly during their single season together in 2007.<\/p>\n
“He (Hamilton) had the greatest bad luck of the day,” said the Spaniard.\u00a0 “I believe Lewis was the favourite for pole position.<\/p>\n
“He was fastest in Q1, fast also in Q2, so to see him seventh you know that something else has gone a bit wrong for them.”<\/p>\n
Hamilton conceded that he almost certainly cannot win from the middle of the grid, and Alonso – on the back of the second row – is also not hopeful.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think the adjustable wing or KERS will help (overtaking) much,” he said.<\/p>\n
Pole sitter Sebastian Vettel added: “There is not the big difference in performance between the tyres here, which is the main reason for so much overtaking (elsewhere) this year.<\/p>\n
“It will be a Monaco similar to past years, and different to the other races this year because there won’t be much overtaking,” said the German.<\/p>\n
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