Lewis on red alert as Vettel storms to pole
Hamilton believes he needs a miracle
HEADS shook in the Mercedes garage and the bosses grimaced as if a bad smell had floated under their nostrils. But their eyes remained glued to the screens, which Sebastian Vettel lit up with a brilliant couple of laps that kept the world championship burning.
The Ferrari man tore around the illuminated track to set pole early on in the final shoot-out and then bettered his own time to finish one-third of a second ahead of all the rest.
What a perfect day for him. What a poor one for Lewis Hamilton, whose Mercedes was only fifth quickest. It looks like the Briton picked the wrong week to turn vegan.
To make matters worse for Mercedes, lying between Vettel and Hamilton on the grid will be the road blocks known as Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen.
‘I need to figure out a way of pulling off a miracle,’ said Hamilton.
No wonder his boss, Toto Wolff, wore the egg-sniffing expression he did when you consider that starting from pole is a near-guarantee of victory in the Singapore Grand Prix: seven times in nine editions, the man who has started first has finished there.
And if the two title rivals complete the 61 laps without moving up or down, the swing would be 15 points. That means Vettel would lead the championship by 12 points with six rounds remaining, restoring the advantage he surrendered at Monza a fortnight ago.
It was a bravura display from Vettel, who had struggled previously this weekend for the sensational form he showed as tension soared in the crescendo of a compelling night – it was 10pm local time as the action drew to a close. His car, he said, ‘came alive… like a switch going from off to on’.
Too right. His final lap was so emphatically on the edge that he thumped the wall at the 19th of 23 mostly slow turns but, despite his Singapore ding, he got the red car across the line more than sixtenths of a second faster than Hamilton.
‘It was not just a little brush either, it was actually a hit,’ said Vettel. ‘I had huge vibrations but thankfully there was not long left. I really pushed as hard as I could. I was relieved when it was done.’
Vettel let out a shriek of delight so high-pitched he might have shattered the windows of the nearby Raffles Hotel. His series of atavistic noises could easily be deciphered as relief to have pressed his nose cone back into the title contest when he had to, on a circuit where he has won a record four times.
‘I don’t know where I found the time from,’ said Vettel. ‘I’m still full of adrenaline. I love this track. The car was tricky but it got better and better as the night progressed so I’m really happy we got it done. It is a long lap with a lot of corners and a lot of things to get right and a lot you can get wrong. It will be a very close race.’
That is unlikely to be the case, without the intervention of a handy safety car or two. As Vettel conceded: ‘Grid position is crucial here.’ Hamilton had held out little hope for himself in qualifying, though he drove very well in equipment unsuited to the twists and bends before him.
He thought he had extracted everything possible from an unhelpful situation and his seven-tenths margin over team-mate Valtteri Bottas suggested he had.
Hamilton’s supporters will be hoping that the three-time champion’s
recent switch from meat-eater to vegan – a change of diet brought on by his watching of a propagandist programme on Netflix – does not leave him undernourished for the trial of a demanding race that lasts two hours in humid conditions.
But it was not practical nutritional matters detaining him in the paddock yesterday but moral imperatives. Among other things, he deplored cows emitting pollution and the concomitant damage such expulsions wreaked on the world, apparently including hurricanes.
It was a long lecture from the private jet-owning philosopher-driver, whose car-manufacturing team are sponsored by oil and gas producer Petronas.