Lewis Hamilton is being investigated by stewards at the Azerbaijani Grand Prix for driving unnecessarily slowly during qualifying, but insists he is not worried. Hamilton from Mercedes seems to have detained Lando Norris from McLaren, whose teammate Daniel Ricciardo was right behind, and is being tested for going too slowly against the target time.
Norris was told on the radio at the end of Q2: “Don’t let him play stupid dogs. He has to monitor his delta, if he doesn’t, there will be problems. He is the leading car, he will have problems. “
When told he had to speed up, Hamilton told Mercedes, “I don’t know what to expect from me sometimes.” The FIA then confirmed that the Briton will be investigated after the qualifiers.
But the seven-time world champion, who finished P7 in qualifying but could be lower if punished, told Sky Sports F1 after the session: “I really have no worries. First I was offline and you have to be within delta time and I was within my delta time.
FULL QUALIFICATION RESULTS: Leclerc on pole in front of Perez and Verstappen
“I wasn’t at that pace outside of the lap, so within the delta time, so I could drive at the speed I want. And I was out of line, so I didn’t keep everyone. I was trying to get a draw because we are so slow in straight lines. The boys in the back didn’t want to go, so I just went out and took a tour. “
Team director Toto Wolff said: “I can’t prevent what the stewards will say. I think he was within the delta time. I don’t know what it means how the stewards will evaluate him.”
Hamilton added about the lack of pace at Mercedes: “I’m not surprised [we were over a second off pole]. It was the same in Monaco. It’s the same. “And yet he added,” There’s a lot to expect. This is a complex and chaotic race, there are many things that can happen. We are in the top 10.
“It was a really difficult qualifying session, because we constantly insist, we have a very, very small car window. Everything we try does not give us what we want. We make a lot of changes, but we always come up with the same conclusion, which is often bouncing, which loses a lot of our productivity.
“And then all the productivity is when you take the car off to a low level. We just say, “We’ll fight with our backs and necks and lower the car as low as possible to get performance.” I went down and jumped a little higher than the other car.
“But we’re still there, we’re just very slow. Maybe tomorrow will be difficult in the race, but we will give everything and I hope that maybe we will have a better pace of the race, who knows. “
Charles Leclerc has secured a pole position in Baku and will be in front of the grid for the fourth consecutive race. However, the Monaco driver has not won any of the last three races. Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen start second and third in the Red Bulls, and Carlos Sainz’s other Ferrari is fourth.
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