Lewis Hamilton will start the F1 Sprint from 13th on the grid, and it’s fair to say that Mercedes boss Toto Wolff isn’t happy about it.
Qualifying session in Imola was not fun for either Mercedes driver. Q2 got off a hasty start for all teams, because of impending rain that was to come later in the session.
As a result, all drivers wanted to get a couple of laps on the soft tyres, before they were forced to switch to the wets. Hamilton and George Russell were in 11th and 13th respectively, when Carlos Sainz crashed. The Ferrari driver crashing, brought out the red flag. So, the session was stopped for several minutes and by the time they got back inside the car, the dry tyres couldn’t be used anymore.
Even before Sainz’s crash, neither driver looked like they were going to make it out of Q2, as both escaped Q3 by the finest of margins (Hamilton in particular).
After Mercedes’ qualifying ended, team principal Toto Wolff was visibly furious, and appeared to behaving some sort of argument with Hamilton in the garage.
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Lewis Hamilton counting on good weather to help Mercedes charge up the field
Mercedes’ Q2 exit in Imola means that it’s the first time since the 2012 Japanese GP, that we didn’t see a single Silver Arrows driver in the top-10 shootout.
After the session, Hamilton refused to comment on the ‘fight’ between him and Wolff. He cited the matter as personal, which need not concern the people not in their team.
In spite of their poor grid start, Hamilton and Russell hope to rely on better weather conditions, to help them charge up the field for Saturday’s Sprint race.
“It is all internal stuff,” he said. “I won’t share that. We will just keep working. It is what it is. We will just keep working hard, each weekend is a rescue.”
“It wasn’t a great session,” the seven-time Champion added. “We come here with optimism and everyone is working really hard at the factory and then things just don’t come together. I think we underperformed as a team.”
“We will work as hard as we can to move up in the sprint race. It is going to be a difficult race but hopefully it is better weather-wise and who knows, maybe we can make our way forward.”
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