Lewis Hamilton has described his \u201cbig shock\u201d at dropping out in the Q2 phase during Saturday\u2019s Qualifying session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, believing that he had the pace to \u201cfight for the top three\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hamilton set the pace at the Baku City Circuit on Friday and was the fastest of the Ferrari drivers during final practice in P4 \u2013 behind only Max Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull and McLaren pair Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.<\/p>\n
However, in an incident-filled Qualifying that featured a host of red flags and saw drivers torn between using Pirelli\u2019s soft and medium compound tyres, Hamilton fell at the second hurdle and will start back in 12th position.<\/p>\n
Asked to reflect on his session, and whether with hindsight he might have taken a different approach with his tyre strategy, Hamilton said: \u201cYeah, for sure. Firstly, we would have done what everyone else did and have three [sets of] mediums going into P3, then into Qualifying we would have had three mediums, and we should have used a medium in Q2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what everyone else did. We knew that it was quicker\u2026 I can\u2019t tell you why we didn\u2019t end up using it, but we\u2019ll take it internal. There\u2019s been lots of progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI\u2019m still optimistic for the race I think, in terms of trying to move forwards. But wow, I honestly thought I was fighting for the top three, so it\u2019s a big shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
While team mate Charles Leclerc made it through to Q3, the Monegasque ended his day in the barriers with a crash at Turn 15 \u2013 leaving him timeless in 10th place.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an extremely difficult weekend overall for me,\u201d said Leclerc, who had claimed the previous four pole positions in Azerbaijan. \u201cNormally Baku is obviously a track I really enjoy driving, but it\u2019s been a bit of a pain from the beginning of the weekend, struggling with the balance of the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI changed quite a lot the car going into Qualifying, which seemed to be better, but unfortunately we couldn\u2019t make the medium work anymore. We started to struggle massively in bringing the medium [up] to temperature, then I did this mistake which obviously cost us a lot. Not much more to add.\u201d<\/p>\n
He signed off: \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a very tough race tomorrow. Starting from the back [of the top 10]\u2026 to come back in front will be tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has described his \u201cbig shock\u201d at dropping out in the Q2 phase during Saturday\u2019s Qualifying session…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-149546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}