- Australian GP - Qualifying
Hamilton: Work needed to convert pole to win
Lewis Hamilton says he still has a lot of work to do to convert his dominant pole into a victory at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Hamilton kicked off his title defence in fine style at the Melbourne circuit, beating Mercedes team-mate by 0.6 seconds after two superb laps in Q3. It mirrors his start to the 2014 campaign, although on that occasion an engine failure ended his race after just three laps, giving Rosberg an easy drive home to victory.
With Rosberg lining up alongside him and Mercedes clearly in a dominant position again Hamilton says he wants to avoid a repeat of 2014.
"It's been a great start to the weekend," he said. "It doesn't feel like it's that long since the last race we had. A big rush and a huge effort from everyone in the factory to enable us to do this so I feel incredibly blessed to have this car. Today we found a good balance and it was about pushing those laps. It's so much fun when we get into qualifying, you get those single laps where you have to push.
"We had a difficult start to the season last year here so as a team we're hoping for a better start, for both cars to succeed tomorrow. We're going to work as hard as we can to make sure we do that and there's lots of work to be done to study for the race tomorrow as that's going to be a huge challenge and hopefully a good fight with Nico."
Hamilton says the best way to convert pole position into a victory against a competitive team mate is through hard work between qualifying and lights out on Sunday.
"There isn't a real secret. It's just hard work in the evening before and then in the day just understanding the strategy, understanding your limitations, your strengths, tyre schedule, diff settings, that sort of stuff, you need to manage that. Last year showed that even if we don't have a good first race it's not the end of the world. But of course the plan tomorrow is to have a better start to the season and today is the first step in that direction."
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