Mercedes driver to start Sunday's German GP from pole position
Sunday 7 July 2013 12:05, UK
Lewis Hamilton believes that he now has a car as fast as Sebastian Vettel's for the first time in his F1 career.
Hamilton claimed pole having earlier struggled with oversteer during final practice. The session saw him go back to basics - the set-up he used in P1, in which he was fastest - and when he still found himself well off the pace of team-mate Nico Rosberg, even more changes were made. They obviously worked in qualifying but Hamilton, who has veered from one extreme of car balance to the other during the course of the weekend, has not yet used the new set-up for a long run. Acknowledging that a question mark still hangs over his race pace, Hamilton explained: "I started with a good balance in P1. We made some changes and it got worse, we made some more changes and it got even worse. "At the end of P3 we went back to where we started, which was better but I was still six tenths off Nico. And we made a lot of changes going into qualifying. "I don't know how it's going to work in a long run, but I anticipate it'll be better." Hamilton currently sits fourth in the Drivers' World Championship, 43 points behind Vettel.
