Lewis Hamilton had the sixth-fastest qualifying time at Monza and was angry with himself after the session for missing out on pole. Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin said that according to GPS data, Lewis was indeed in contention for a front-row starting position but lost a lot of time at the Parabolica corner.
Andrew Shovlin: “I’m sure we could have done better. The reason for Lewis’ frustration is obvious, and you only have to look at the GPS data to see it. Going into the last corner he was within half a tenth of Lando Norris’ time, which would have given him pole position. However, Lewis didn’t handle the final corner optimally and lost a lot of time. If he hadn’t done that, he could easily have taken a front row start and perhaps challenged for pole.
It was a similar story with George Russell, he was also very close to Lando until the last corner and drove it a little better than Lewis, which allowed him to take third place.
Lately we see seven or eight cars at the start battling for the front row, with results within two tenths of a second. At this density it really depends on the rider being able to put the circle together.
Shame for Lewis, because he showed excellent pace in the second part of qualifying, but couldn’t complete the decisive lap in the final and dropped to sixth place. This shows how tight the results are.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
