Lewis Hamilton was accused by his former team-mate Nico Rosberg of making an “unnecessary” and “avoidable” mistake as he experienced a day of contrasting fortunes in China.
After bagging second place in the sprint race on Saturday morning, an excellent result which earned him seven points in the drivers’ championship, his biggest points haul of the season to date, Hamilton could only qualify 18th for Sunday’s main race after a mistake at the hairpin in Q1.
The seven-time world champion ran wide, costing himself half a second and a spot in Q2. Mercedes team-mate George Russell battled through to Q3, eventually qualifying eighth, behind the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Afterwards, Hamilton said he had made “massive” changes to his car’s set-up following the sprint race but claimed they had not worked. “I’ll give it my best shot,” Hamilton reflected of his chances on Sunday. “Eighteenth is pretty bad. When I was making the set-up changes, I was like: ‘It can’t get any worse, surely.’ And it did!
“I just struggled, it is what it is. This morning, George [Russell] and I had very similar cars but we are trying to experiment still and so I went one way by a long way and he went the other. Yeah, it didn’t work. Eighteenth is pretty bad. S--- happens.”
Rosberg sounded unconvinced. “That is seriously painful,” the 2016 world champion said in Sky Sports F1 commentary of Hamilton’s Q1 exit. “You know the wind is coming from the back there at that part of the track. He had a great lap until then. It was really unnecessary to push the limit and as a seven-time world champion that is a mistake which should be unavoidable.”
Rosberg noted that Hamilton tended to blame set-up differences for his deficit to Russell in qualifying this year, calling it an a “excuse”. Russell, 26, now leads their qualifying head-to-head 4-1 across the first five races.
Rosberg said: “It’s interesting how this year, because George has most of the time been in front of Lewis, four to one now in qualifying, Lewis always tends to say, ‘yeah but we have such different set-ups and such a big car difference’. That’s kind of his excuse so far this year.”
The day had begun so positively for Hamilton. A stunning lap in wet, slippery conditions on Friday had seen him put his car second on the grid for the sprint race, just behind McLaren’s Lando Norris. And things got even better for the 39-year-old when he muscled his way past Norris at the start and took the lead.
Hamilton could not keep Verstappen at bay for long, however. In dry conditions, the Red Bull enjoys a massive advantage over the rest of the field and Verstappen, who had started the race fourth, hit the front by the midway point of the 19-lap race before disappearing off into the distance.
The Dutchman pulled away from Hamilton at over a second per lap to win by more than 13 seconds in the final reckoning, while Norris, who had run off track when trying to hold off Hamilton on the opening lap, was left to settle for sixth ahead of team-mate Piastri.
Red Bull’s dominance continued into the afternoon with Verstappen becoming the first driver this century to take pole at the first five races of a season. It was Red Bull’s 100th pole, and it came 15 years after their first, appropriately at the same track in Shanghai.
Perez’s second place in qualifying was another strong showing from the Mexican who is out of contract at the end of the season and desperately fighting for an extension.
“Checo did a great job,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. “He has come into this season with a new frame of mind. He is relaxed while maintaining full focus on the task at hand and that shines through in his performance and delivery; exactly where he needs to be.”
It took a few hours for the qualifying results to be finalised with stewards considering a protest from Aston Martin over Ferrari’s Sainz, who crashed at the end of his first lap in second qualifying but managed to get the Ferrari back to the pits minus its front wing.
Aston Martin argued that, on the basis of a rule that says a driver whose car stops on track will not be permitted to take any further part in qualifying, the Spaniard should be disqualified. Stewards ruled that he was allowed to continue because he had not received outside assistance to restart his car and had not stopped long enough to be considered as having ‘stopped’.
It is likely to require some sort of protest or outside factor to prevent Verstappen and Red Bull from claiming their fifth victory in six races this season on Sunday. But Hamilton said he was looking forward to it all the same. “We can still have some fun even if we are starting from P18,” he reflected.