Lewis Hamilton’s frustrated exchange LEAKED as he laments over ‘half a second’ gap to teammate George Russell
Lewis Hamilton sounded quite miffed when his Race Engineer Peter Bonnington mentioned that the gap between him and teammate George Russell was almost half a second at the Singapore GP Qualifying.
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Lewis Hamilton (via IMAGO)
The Singapore GP Qualifying saw some interesting ups and downs in the performances of the different F1 teams. While some, like Haas, excelled, others could not impress the fans. At the very start of the race, a scary crash took away Aston Martin racer Lance Stroll‘s chance at scoring a good starting position for tomorrow’s race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. And then, both the Red Bulls made a surprise exit from Q2 due to some very interesting obvious problems with their RB-19s.
But Mercedes stuck to their plan, put in their efforts, and saw both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell pull through the first two rounds of Qualifying without any incident. During Q3, Hamilton’s pace was not at all what the fans would have liked to see. The seven-time World Champion lapped much slower than the younger racers who were battling it out in the front–Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, and George Russell.
Once Sainz got the pole position and his teammate Leclerc finished in the third spot, it was George Russell in P2 and Lando Norris in P4. Lewis Hamilton was down the grid in the fifth position, and that was not what the Briton wanted to hear from his Race Engineer Peter Bonnington. When the Quali ended and Bono conveyed the results to Lewis, the exchanged, as reported by X user @fiagirly, went like–Bono said, “Finishing order, we’ve got Sainz P1, George P2, then it’s Leclerc, Norris then yourself.” To this, a frustrated Lewis commented, “Half a second down to George.”
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Lewis Hamilton makes his frustration clear at the Singapore GP post-quali interview
Lewis Hamilton’s run at the Singapore GP Qualifying did not turn out as he had expected, especially in comparison with his teammate George Russell’s results. The Briton gave a befitting fight to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at the front of the grid. But Lewis Hamilton claimed, “Yesterday and it was so much hope that with some tweaks we’d be able to challenge the Ferraris – and obviously one of the cars was able to do that, and I wasn’t.“
On the other hand, George Russell split the two Scuderia as he scored a front row start to Singapore GP beside Sainz. The Briton’s gap to the pole-sitter was so narrow that it can foreseen that tomorrow’s race will have some good battle for the lead in store for the fans. And even though the Red Bulls could not garner the expected results on Saturday, they can hardly be discounted as Max Verstappen has already won a race this year from the ninth place in the grid at the Miami Grand Prix.
Thus, it remains to be seen how the race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit turns out for the different F1 teams tomorrow. But for today, the star of the Qualifying is none other than Singapore GP first-timer Liam Lawson who outscored heavyweight opponents like Max and Checo to get a top 10 start. And Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen also put up impressive lap times as they got a double top 10 start for the American team for the first time this year.
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