Lewis Hamilton, who had made light of the many difficulties posed by Formula One’s newest track in Baku, will start Sunday’s European Grand Prix in 10th place after crashing out in qualifying. He handed an easy pole position to his Mercedes team-mate and arch-rival, Nico Rosberg, whose lead in the world championship has been slashed from 43 points to nine following Hamilton’s victories in Monaco and Montreal.
On Saturday morning, the world champion, who had had a dig at the moaning of his fellow drivers who had expressed misgivings about the street circuit, had again been quickest in FP3, having dominated both earlier practice sessions. But he lost his form when it really mattered and twice had problems before finally clipping the wall in Q3, after which the session was red-flagged.
“I had fantastic rhythm yesterday and zero rhythm today,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you what the possibilities are for tomorrow. It’s damage limitation from here. The team made a change to something overnight but I was just not on it today.”
Though Hamilton will start from 10th place, there are overtaking opportunities on the long straight and Rosberg refused to write him off. “Never forget Lewis,” he said. “He can always come back from 10th. A 1-2 is still possible. Lewis has shown from 10th he can come strong. He finished an easy second in Russia.”
He added: “It was great, one of the more challenging sessions out there. Everything worked out well. All weekend we have been building towards this and qualifying was really optimum.
“They’ve done a great job up to now, with the track especially. It was an exciting qualifying. It’s one of the easiest places to overtake so it should be an exciting race.”
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes motorsport chief, said: “Clearly Lewis has lost an opportunity. The car was good enough for pole position. It is tricky around here.”
On Friday, the Mercedes-powered Williams and Force India had looked stronger than Ferrari and Red Bull, and on Saturday Force India’s Sergio Pérez set the second-fastest time. It was a frustrating day for the Mexican driver, however: because he crashed at the end of FP3, and had his gearbox replaced, he was handed a five-place grid penalty and will start seventh.
Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) set identical times, but the former will start on the front row because he set his time first. They will be followed by Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), Felipe Massa (Williams) and Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso).
The race is difficult to predict. There is every chance that there will be at least one safety car given the difficulties experienced by GP2 drivers over the weekend and, indeed, their supposed betters.
The walls in the Azerbaijani capital look very hittable on the slippery surface and the 3.77-mile, circuit, which has 20 corners, is still a work in progress for drivers attempting to meet its fresh challenges over Sunday’s 51 laps.
Jenson Button became the first McLaren driver to go out in Q1 this season. He said: “We were a bit unlucky. I made a mistake at Turn 15 and locked it up and went off. I did a doughnut and that’s not good for tyres.
“We should have put on new tyres. It is what it is. There’s only one place to overtake and that’s the main straight – we found it difficult on our long runs yesterday, but we’ll try our best to overtake.”
Button, though, had looked uncertain about his fresh surroundings all weekend. Quite his most assured performance this season has been his relaxed guest appearance on Top Gear.
