xpb Lewis Hamilton with poor qualification
03/27/2010
D if Lewis Hamilton of all people got it, he was after the strong one Friday training no one thought. Lewis Hamilton fell through the grate in the second qualifying round. The 2008 world champion was off the roll.
Aftermath of the traffic offense?
Hamilton was apparently still thinking about the traffic offense on Friday, which the Australian newspapers exploited on the front pages . Hamilton had been caught by the police in a burnout at a traffic light with a Mercedes C63 AMG.
This is more than a traffic offense in Australia. Hamilton's car was immediately confiscated and ohn is charged with traffic hazard. The team said the McLaren star had been so caught up in the affair that he hadn't slept all night. 'He was certainly a bit distracted,' admitted team principal Martin Whitmarsh.
The sticking point of soft tires
Hamilton's qualification started quite normally. The Englishman made it through the first lap comfortably on hard tires. But no sooner had he put soft tires on in the second qualifying lap than everything went wrong. Hamilton abandoned his first attempt because the car slipped too much and didn't want to build up grip. The second attempt also failed.
'Lewis was faster on hard tires than on soft ones. Something was wrong. The data shows us that everything was fine with the car and the tire pressures,' reported Whitmarsh. Hamilton blamed himself: 'I had free laps and was not stopped.'
Button equalizes in the training duel
For Jenson Button Hamilton's form was the first sense of achievement. The world champion was at ball level with his stable rival throughout training. In the qualification he pulled his tooth. Whitmarsh commented dryly: 'Jenson was in good shape in Bahrain, Hamilton was in Melbourne.'
