Hamilton shows nerves of steel to seize pole position just in time
Briton in front while rival Vettel struggles in fourth Presence of ex-girlfriend does nothing to alter focus
Lewis Hamilton delivered the perfect lap at the perfect time to leave his championship rival Sebastian Vettel firmly in the shade ahead of today’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Just as in Canada a fortnight previously, Hamilton made it count when it mattered most to finish nearly half-asecond clear of his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas in qualifying with Vettel a distant fourth.
American pop group Black Eyed Peas and singer Nicole Scherzinger both performed here last night. And unsurprisingly it was the former who Hamilton enjoyed a lunch date with prior to his extraordinary lap.
There were rumblings in the paddock that the mere presence of Hamilton’s former girlfriend may ruffle his feathers. Indeed he reacted in a prickly fashion when a German journalist asked if he planned to see her this weekend.
“There are concerts at every race,’’ Hamilton said. “I am focused on winning the race.’’ His crushing performance in qualifying has now provided him with the chance to do just that.
“I am so pumped with that pole, and that is how qualifying should be,” he continued. “It will be a hard race, but we are in the best position to start.”
The narrow confines of the picturesque Baku City Circuit have caused a number of problems for drivers here with Turn Eight – a strip of tarmac which measures just 7.8 metres in width – already the scene of two crashes and a number of near misses.
But it was the right-handed Turn Six that caught Daniel Ricciardo on the hop as he lost the rear of his Red Bull, thudded into the wall and stopped on track. The red flags were immediately deployed and the countdown clock had 3min and 33sec remaining.
Bottas held the advantage over Hamilton after the Briton made a mistake during his first shot at pole in the top10 shoot-out. But with the odds and time heavily stacked against him, Hamilton did what only he can do, by responding in the most emphatic of fashions to clinch his second pole in as many races.
The 66th pole of Hamilton’s career has moved him above Ayton Senna and into a stand-alone second in the record books. Indeed the 32-year-old could match Michael Schumacher’s pole haul, of which he is now just two short, at Silverstone in next month’s British Grand Prix.
For Hamilton’s chief title rival Vettel it has been a difficult weekend. The German, who leads Hamilton by 12 points, failed to trouble the time sheets on Friday before missing most of final practice with a hydraulic issue.
Although his Ferrari team managed to resolve the failure in time, Vettel was an eye-watering 1.3 seconds slower than Hamilton.
Fernando Alonso will start last after serving a mammoth 40-place penalty following a raft of changes to his hapless Honda engine.
The Spaniard’s manager Flavio Briatore went out for dinner in Baku with Mercedes bosses’ Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda on Friday night before Luis Garcia, another of Alonso’s management team, had lunch with Renault’s Alain Prost and Cyril Abiteboul in the paddock ahead of qualifying. Alonso, 35, is out of contract with McLaren at the end of the season, and the very public dates will heighten the British team’s concern that their star man will leave.
Despite his lowly grid slot, Alonso said tellingly: “It has been a very positive weekend for me.”