Mail Online

Lewis avoids the mayhem

Five crashes in crazy session

By Jonathan McEvoy

FOR a man who would usually choose kidney stones over second place, Lewis Hamilton was uncharacteristically delighted to qualify one position behind pole-man Charles Leclerc for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

This was because he went to bed on Friday unable to fathom why his Mercedes was out of sorts. After finishing 11th in second practice, his team’s deep analysis of the situation went on until 11pm. Third practice yesterday proved little better, with only a tow giving Hamilton a veneer of respectability on the timing screens, as he again struggled to get his tyres working.

Then, as if by magic, though really a product of high effort and immense expertise from driver and boffins, that all changed as the most entertaining qualifying session of this young season — involving five crashes and four red flags — unfolded.

Hamilton ended up just two- tenths behind Leclerc, the Ferrari man who grabbed pole a fortnight ago in Monaco only to undo his hard work then by clipping the barriers and missing the race as a consequence.

Ma xV er st a pp en, whole ads the standings by four points, qualified a place back from his championship rival. Another reason for the Briton to view second position as balm.

‘ Wow,’ said Hamilton over the radio. ‘What an effort.’

Out of the cockpit, the reigning champion added: ‘Honestly, it’s one of the greatest feelings given the difficult experience we’ve gone through. After being out of the top 10 all weekend and really struggling to extract performance from our car. It is hard to describe the emotions I have gone through over the last few days. It was a bit of a disaster.

‘I’m really happy to be up here and grateful to have got the lap in. It puts us in for a much different race from the one we anticipated yesterday. The work overnight and particularly between sessions was amazing from the team. They worked until 10 minutes before qualifying, changing things.’

Hamilton, in truth, may have been helped by Yuki Tsunoda smashing his AlphaTauri to bring a premature end to qualifying. That meant Verstappen was denied his final shot at the pole he had started the afternoon as favourite to obtain.

The Dutchman was furious at his ill- luck. ‘ It was just stupid qualifying,’ he said. ‘ Everything was working out fine but this s*** is happening all the time in Q3.’ After drawing breath, he added: ‘It is a street circuit so these things can happen.’

They certainly can. Indeed, Verstappen crashed during third practice at Turn 15, a left-hander that acted like a car magnet all day. In qualifying, it accounted for Aston Martin’ s Lance St roll (red flag !) and Alfa Romeo’ s Antonio Giovinazzi ( red flag!). Daniel Ricciardo clattered his

McLaren at another left- hander, Turn 3 ( red f l ag!). And when Tsunoda came to grief there too, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, perhaps distracted by the accident in front of him, pirouetted off. That elicited the final red flag.

Fourth on the grid is Pierre Gasly for AlphaTauri, with Sainz fifth. McLaren’s Lando Norris qualified sixth but suffered a three- place penalty for not pulling into the pits under one of the red flags.

Valtteri Bottas, in t he other Mercedes, was ninth fastest, but may have gone better but for Tsunoda’s day-ending antics.

Off track, the spat between Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and his opposite number at Mercedes, Toto Wolff, boiled up again. Mercedes believe Red Bull gain an illegal advantage with their ‘flexible’ rear wing.

Horner countered that the front and rear wings of the Mercedes flex, telling Wolff he should ‘keep his mouth shut’. Wolff shot back, saying of Horner: ‘He is a windbag who wants to be on camera.’

Sport

en-gb

2021-06-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/284455691682589

dmg media (UK)