Lewis Hamilton bemoans Ferrari changing Azerbaijan GP qualifying plan

Lewis Hamilton was left frustrated after claiming that Ferrari changed its plan for the final part of Formula 1 qualifying at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. 

Seven-time world champion Hamilton was compromised by running without a tow from another car as he could only manage a lap good enough for sixth on the grid in Baku. 

Hamilton ended up over 1.3 seconds off Mercedes’ George Russell, who claimed a dominant pole position ahead of Charles Leclerc, who benefitted from getting a tow from his Ferrari team-mate on his final Q3 run. 

After qualifying, Hamilton appeared to suggest that Ferrari’s last-minute change of plans for Q3 had a negative impact on his qualifying. 

“It’s been a pretty bad qualifying once again,” a disappointed Hamilton told Sky Sports F1. “It’s not for a lack of trying. Q1 and Q2 were pretty OK, at least Q1 was pretty decent. 

“As we went into Q3 they changed the plan. Instead of doing two runs we ended up waiting and because I was ahead of Charles, I had nobody ahead of me for the tow. So that was worth quite a chunk in itself. 

“But either way, we couldn’t compete with the Mercedes. They are just out-right so much quicker on the straights than us. They did a great job.” 

Asked if he has any hope of fighting back to the podium in Saturday’s race, Hamilton replied: “I think it’s going to be hard to overtake the Mercedes tomorrow and keeping up with the Mercedes engine on the straight will be tough, but I’ll give it everything I’ve got.” 

Even with the tow from Hamilton, Leclerc, a four-time pole sitter in Azerbaijan, lagged a massive 0.837s behind Russell.

"Honestly, it was quite a good lap. Lewis was three-four seconds, I think, in front, and I managed to do a good lap at the end,” Leclerc said. 

"But when I see the gap to George, maybe the lap wasn’t good enough.

“Overall, we’ve been on the back foot all weekend. We kind of expected to be very far off after a difficult Thursday, but this morning I had a little bit more hope.

"I think in terms of position, that’s where we expected to be, but in terms of gap it’s a lot more than what we expected.

"We’ll see tomorrow. Our straight-line speed is not our strength but the pace has been quite strong in FP1 for high-fuel, so I hope that will be the case tomorrow."