A fearless “all or nothing” lap from McLaren’s Lando Norris in wet and wild conditions denied Lewis Hamilton pole position on Friday for the sprint race in Shanghai.
Hamilton thought he had claimed pole in his Mercedes when Norris’s lap of 1min 57.940sec on intermediate wet tyres was deleted for exceeding track limits, only to be dramatically reinstated a minute later.
Fernando Alonso in an Aston Martin showed his experience and guile to come third in the treacherous conditions with championship leader Max Verstappen fourth after he too had a time deleted for running too wide.
It was a second career sprint pole for Norris. “It was tricky, you are always nervous going into a session like this,” said the Englishman.
“You just have to risk a lot, push and build tyre temperature and what not.” “I’m happy — sad it’s not for a proper qualifying — but good enough,” added Norris.
“You only get three laps. The first two I aborted on both, so it was all or nothing, a good position for tomorrow.”
Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez was sixth, splitting the Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, who survived a big spin on the wet track unscathed despite touching the barrier.
“I lost it out of turn eight,” admitted Leclerc. “That compromised our quali but there wasn’t much more we could have done.”
Fifth-placed Sainz said the rain and cool conditions made it very difficult to get his intermediate tyres warmed up. “We didn’t manage to switch on the tyres so we couldn’t push,” said the Spaniard, the only driver to win a race this season apart from Verstappen.—AFP
