Nico Rosberg bounced back and took full advantage of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s multiple penalties to grab pole position on Saturday for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Advertisement
Hamilton, who started 21st after being handed 60 grid position penalties for taking three new power-units through the weekend, remains narrowly ahead of Rosberg in the title race with 232 points to his 223.
However, Hamilton holds on to his lead in the drivers’ championship by nine points following this somewhat unexpected result.
Hamilton, who did only one slow run in the first part of qualifying to ensure he made it into the race without trouble, said: “It’s definitely the weirdest qualifying session or weekend I’ve had so far”.
“I didn’t expect Lewis to be third and that was pretty impressive”, the German said.
“So it was just a bit of a different world out there and we really had to change a lot of things and adapt, so it was great to see how we managed to turn it around and get there eventually just in time for qualifying”. We have a few strategies.
His Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton, the world championship leader, finished third from the back row of the grid, behind Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
Rosberg had leapt into the lead from what was a messy start behind him that saw the two Ferraris take damage from one another after Max Verstappen went up the inside on the first corner.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was ninth and Red Bull’s Verstappen finished a disappointing 11th.
The incidents prompted the safety vehicle to come out on lap three, and when the race re-started a lap later Sainz, Marcus Ericsson, Jenson Button and Pascal Wehrlein – who hit Button from behind – had all retired. “Third (place) is something definitely helped by the safety auto”.
Dutch teenager Verstappen kept the thousands of Dutch fans, many clad in orange, on their feet in the stands as he fought tough battles with both Raikkonen and Vettel.
Hamilton feared soaring temperatures will make this the worst place to take grid penalties for exceeding his allotted number of engines for the year.
Hamilton charged through the field and was chasing hard for second place when he ran out of laps.
Renault’s Kevin Magnuseen and Jolyon Palmer then came in 12th and 14th, sandwiching the second Haas F1 entry of Esteban Gutierrez, who will drop five places on the grid for impeding Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein in final practice.
But with the barriers severely damaged, FIA race director Charlie Whiting took the decision to red flag the race for 17 minutes to allow repairs to be carried out. “But you can never predict what’s going to happen in the race”. “But for Nico, who was obviously having a Sunday drive today, he didn’t have any stress from anyone and he was gone by the time I had even got past the Force India [for third]”.
Advertisement
“I have a massive 55 place grid penalty today – but I also now have three new engines in the pool for the season, which is positive”, Hamilton said.
