CARRY OFF – Lewis Hamilton surprised the crowd and itself ensuring its first position of the Sprint pole for Ferrari in the last moments of classification on Friday in the Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prize.
Hamilton arrived in Shanghai after his Disappointing season of seasonal opening last weekend in Australia, where he ended tenth in his first race by Ferrari. He only achieved the fastest room in opening practice here for a modest improvement in that.
Exceeded the first sprint section that qualifies for the season, before the McLaren dominant of Lando Norris He took over SQ2. An aborted lap of McLaren’s pilot, after an error in his last round, gave Hamilton his chance, and the seven -time world champion took him in an impressive style with less than a remaining minute.
“I’m a little stunned, sincerely, I’m a little recovered for that,” Hamilton said. “I didn’t know when we would get to this position. Although it is not the main pole that gives me a real inspiration to enter tomorrow to find more performance and see if we can compete again.”
Hamilton’s time was only 18 thousandths of second ahead of Max Verstappen of Red Bull, with McLaren teammate from Norris, Oscar Piestri third. Charles Leclerc de Ferrari was fourth, with George Russell de Mercedes closing the first five.
Verstappen said he was satisfied with second place after benefiting from Norris’s accident.
“I think in the first practice we were quite out, so I’m very happy to be in the front row, honestly,” Verstappen said.
Piastri questioned McLaren’s decision to leave early in the third qualification session despite the fact that the team had been comfortably faster until then.
“We tried something a bit different and we left much earlier and tried two laps, which I am not sure that it was the best in the end,” Piestri said. “But I think it’s something we must see. The rhythm in the car is still very strong, and I am sure to fight from third place tomorrow.”
Norris, who won the Australian GP before Verstappen, will begin Sprint’s career from the sixth on the network and seemed distressed at the end of the session.
“I made a mistake, I locked myself in the last corner,” Norris said. “But yes, now we fight a little more, simply not simply enough. But yes, only our difficulties we have been fighting show much more today. So nothing more than that, honestly. Too many mistakes (and) too difficult to drive to drive.”
Charles Leclerc de Ferrari was fourth and George Russell de Mercedes closed the first five, two positions ahead of his rookie teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Liam Lawson from Red Bull came out in the first qualification session, as in Australia.
“In just my second round, I left,” Lawson said. “It is obviously a shame. I think that from a starting point, it was not so bad, the first round was fine. And then we were looking to build on that. But, we were left out to try to cool the tires on the road, and to be honest I really struggled to lower the temperatures starting the second round.”
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