Lewis Hamilton again showed that he is the best driver in the rain, winning pole for the Belgian Grand Prix, which takes place on Sunday.
The Mercedes star saved his best performance for the final lap to easily beat Sebastian Vettel’s fastest time by seven tenths of a second to secure his 78th pole position, extending his Formula One record.
“The rain is always my friend,” said Hamilton. “I think it is one of the most difficult sessions I can remember. We only had a few laps to find traction on the track (in the rain), to determine where it was dry and where it was wet. “
On his penultimate lap, Hamilton momentarily went off the track. But as usual in such conditions, he regained his composure immediately.
Hamilton has won the past two races _ both affected by rain _ to take first place in the championship and take 24 points ahead of Vettel.
Vettel was second, in another disappointing performance for Ferrari, which had won all three practice sessions. But, as in previous races, the rain seemed to affect Vettel’s confidence and strengthen Hamilton’s.
“Obviously (the rain) didn’t help. It was kind of weird, hard to watch, ”Vettel said. “Maybe I wasn’t as calm as I should have been. There is confusion when it suddenly starts to rain ”.
The rain only came for the final part of qualifying and it affected things considerably.
Two days after the team emerged from a management process, the renamed Racing Point Force India was third and fourth with Frenchman Esteban Ocon and Mexican Sergio Pérez, respectively.
“It’s always tighter between cars when it rains like this,” said Ocon.
Vettel praised Ocon’s performance.
“It was his day,” said the German.
But Vettel wasn’t equally impressed with his team’s performance.
“It was kind of chaotic and not particularly good from a driving point of view,” he said. “I don’t think we had it all on the last lap, we ran out of battery. It was not a good way to close the qualifications ”.
Vettel recorded the best time in the third and final practice, won by Ferrari as well as the first two.
The practice session was interrupted towards the end after Stoffel Vandoorne’s McLaren ran off the track as he tried to pass Valtteri Bottas’s Mercedes.
What the hell was that Mercedes doing? He pushed me onto the grass, ”said an irate Vandoorne on the team radio.
Bottas was apparently at fault, not giving Vandoorne room as he approached from the left.
“I didn’t see it,” Bottas told his team.
Upon review, Bottas was determined to be driving in a “potentially dangerous” manner and received a reprimand. He was not penalized because the incident was not considered to be intentional. AP