Lewis Hamilton takes China sprint race pole in record time
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Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton celebrates taking pole position after the sprint qualifying session of the Chinese Grand Prix.
PHOTO: AFP
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SHANGHAI – Lewis Hamilton said he was “gobsmacked” as he put Ferrari on pole position for the first Formula One sprint race of the season in China in record time on March 21, with Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen joining him on the front row.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton lapped with a best time of 1min 30.849sec, the fastest ever around the Shanghai International Circuit, with Verstappen just 0.018sec slower.
It was the Briton’s first pole position of any sort for the Italian team since the sport’s most successful driver joined from Mercedes in January.
“I’m just a bit gobsmacked, taken aback by it. Even though it’s not the main pole, that gives me real inspiration for tomorrow to find more performance,” Hamilton said.
“To come here to a track that I love; Shanghai, beautiful place, and the weather has been amazing and the car really came alive from Lap 1.
“We made some great changes, the team did a fantastic job through the break to get the car ready. I’m a bit in shock. I can’t believe we got a pole in a sprint.
“It’s not the main race, we’ve still got work to do for tomorrow but it puts us in good stead for the race.”
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri qualified third for the sprint race on March 22 with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fourth, George Russell fifth for Mercedes and McLaren’s championship leader Lando Norris sixth.
A big surprise was Melbourne winner Norris, whose McLaren had been fastest by almost half a second in morning practice ahead of Leclerc, Piastri and Hamilton.
He was sixth after he ran wide and aborted his final flying lap.
“I made a mistake. I locked up in the last corner. Just too many mistakes but just too difficult of a car to drive,” admitted Norris, who complained his car was not to his liking.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon of Williams and Lance Stroll of Aston Martin rounded off the top 10.
The 19-lap sprint race will take place before grand prix qualifying later the same day. March 23 sees the Chinese Grand Prix over 56 laps.
In other news, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said he was primed for a “development race” between F1’s top teams, singling out McLaren as “the car to beat”.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit dominated the sport over the first two years after the most recent regulations change in 2022 – which saw a return to ground-effect cars – as other teams struggled with generating downforce by passing air underneath their cars instead of through wings on top of them.
But the pack have tightened up significantly since then, with McLaren overcoming a 115-point deficit to Red Bull after the first six races of 2024 and winning the constructors’ championship.
The McLaren outfit have already established themselves as title favourites for 2025, following Norris’ win in Australia last weekend and despite his latest troubles in sprint qualifying.
“It’s of course now a development race between now and Abu Dhabi in December,” Horner told a news conference as he sat next to McLaren team boss Zak Brown.
“It’s going to be a nine-month marathon of a season.
“From what we saw in Melbourne, if the racing is like that all the way through, it could be a bumper year.”
Verstappen, who was second in Australia, also said he considered McLaren to be “quite far ahead” after finishing around nine-tenths of a second behind Norris.
REUTERS, AFP
