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Hamilton braced for 'difficult' race from middle of the pack

Lewis Hamilton knows he'll have his work cut out in Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix as he'll start from P11.

Lewis Hamilton is expecting a "difficult" Turkish Grand Prix, with the Mercedes driver set to start Sunday's race from 11th on the grid. Hamilton finished with the fastest time in qualifying at Istanbul Park , however a 10-place grid penalty for taking on a new engine means he'll have to work his way through the field. "It's not the easiest [to] overtake at the moment, and we're all on the same tyre as well, so I imagine tomorrow's going to be difficult to move up," Hamilton stated after the session. "You saw at the last race [in Russia], what happened with Max [Verstappen], for example, once he got behind sixth place. "We've got the long straight down the back, [so] we'll see what we can do. Hopefully, we can give the fans a good race." While Hamilton will have to work hard when the race gets underway, he was pleased with how he and the team dealt with the damp and tricky conditions on Saturday. "The track is completely different, it's absolutely awesome with the grip that it's giving us now," Hamilton added. "That was really tricky in general, because there's still some damp patches, and getting the temperature into the tyres for the first lap wasn't easy. "[It was a] really great job by the team, so [I'm] happy with the performance in terms of getting us out at the right time. Tomorrow is gonna be difficult, but I'll give it everything." Hamilton leads title rival Verstappen by two points heading into the race. Verstappen will start second, behind Hamilton's teammate, Valtteri Bottas.

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