MAXIMUM PRESSURE Lewis: It’s Turn One or bust
LEWIS HAMILTON faces a battle against his own Mercedes AND title race leader Max Verstappen in today’s French GP – no wonder he’s praying for rain!
The seven-time world champion has bossed the past two editions of the race, winning both from pole.
But he had no answer for the pace of Red Bull and Verstappen in qualifying yesterday. The championship-leading Dutchman finished 0.258secs clear of Hamilton, with the Brit’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas third.
Hamilton, using Bottas’s old chassis after a planned rotation of parts, has been wrestling with his machine.
He said: “It has been a really hard weekend, mentally, just trying to get the car into a happy place.
“You would not believe how many changes we have made.
“I have been unhappy in the car. Max has been incredibly quick. We have got a race on our hands and we are loving the battle. We’ll keep pushing, keep fighting, giving it everything.
“We’re going to fight for a chance into Turn One – there could be some interesting strategy.”
Wet-weather king Hamilton has one eye on help from above as well, and he added: “I think there could be some rain too – so a chance to see a rain master.”
Verstappen, claiming his second pole of the season, warned: “No points are scored yet but it is a great day. We need to finish it off in the race, and get the 25 points that we lost in Baku.”
Earlier, Yuki Tsunoda and Mick Schumacher both crashed out of Q1. Tsunoda slid backwards into the barriers after carrying too much speed through the opening corner.
The Japanese rookie was unable to engage first gear in his AlphaTauri and the session was stopped to retrieve his stricken machine.
Then, in the closing minutes of Q1, Schumacher, 22, son of legend Michael, lost control of his Haas through the right-handed Turn Six and collected the barriers.
Schumacher had appeared to be on course to take part in Q2 for the first time in his career. He will now line up in 15th, one spot behind Britain’s George Russell in his Williams.