Chinese Grand-Prix: Hamilton Speaks About Delightful Pole

A sensational start to the weekend for McLaren and Lewis Hamilton continued this morning as Lewis snapped up pole position with ease.

The McLaren seemed to easily out pace every car on the track, including the Ferrari.  Hamilton was three tenths of a second quicker than second placed Kimi Raikkonen in Q3 this morning.

This pole position sees Lewis hit seven on his pole position count for the 2008 season.

"We came here very strong, very determined and with a good frame of mind, and we've been very competitive all weekend," said Hamilton.

"The practice has gone very well, and the qualifying was one of my best."

Hamilton's first lap of Q3 was a bit of a disaster, five tenths of a second off the pace as he lost over half a second after an error in sector two.  A simple pit, tyre change and word in his ear and he was back on track to secure pole position.

"My first Q3 lap wasn't so great, but I managed to put it together on the last lap and it was as close as I could get to a perfect lap," Lewis said.

"It was all good up until turn eight (on the first lap), and just through there, I had a big over-steer moment, ran wide and was on the marbles.

That messed me up for turns nine and 10, so I lost around 0.7s, something like that.

I had to finish the lap, I couldn't bail out, I had to still get a banker in.

I came in, the team told me where the time was lost, I knew where it was lost, so I went out and made sure it worked the next time."

You'd think that at this late stage in the championship, pressure would be getting to the 22-year-old, but Hamilton insists he doesn't feel pressurized and is purely driven by passion and the want of winning.

"To be honest, I didn't have anything hanging over me or anything else on my mind except for just doing a good lap," said Hamilton,who sits two grid positions in front of his championship contender, Felipe Massa.

"I was relaxed, I was happy with the balance of the car, I knew I could've done it, so it was just a matter of going out and doing it.

It was tough for sure because everyone was very competitive, but I'm very happy I got the lap done."