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Lewis Hamilton suffers car fire while Nico Rosberg grabs Hungary pole Lewis Hamilton suffers car fire while Nico Rosberg grabs Hungary pole
(about 2 hours later)
Lewis Hamilton’s wretched fortune continued here on Saturday when his Mercedes caught fire at the start of qualifying for Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton was a study in forlornness as he trudged away from his smoking car at the Hungaroring, his left hand clasped to his helmeted head. If the fastest driver in Formula One fails to win the world championship, in the best car there is, that image could come to define his season, possibly his entire vivid but often frustrating career.
Hamilton had dominated all three practice sessions and was favourite to win in Hungary for a record fifth time, but his hopes went up in flames as he told his team: “Guys, I’m on fire!” His race engineer replied: “OK, Lewis, just stop the car where there is a fire marshall.” Hamilton said he could not stop the car, before finally coming to a halt. This was the sixth time in as many races that his qualifying had been spoiled and his ability to seize pole with one electric lap has always been at the heart of his success.
It ended the day for him and means that once again he will start from the back of the field while his team-mate Nico Rosberg – his only serious rival for the Formula One world championship – will be in pole position. In Canada and Austria he was at fault, as he was at Silverstone this month, though he went on to win that grand prix. In Germany last week, when he suffered brake failure, and again on Saturday he was betrayed by his Mercedes. His car caught fire five minutes into Q1 owing to a suspected fuel leak, and that means he has had reliability issues on four occasions this season.
It is the sixth time in as many races – going back to Monaco in May – that Hamilton’s qualifying has been spoiled either by the car’s unreliability or by his own maladroitness. Nico Rosberg, his team-mate and only rival for the title, has had only one such setback, when he failed to complete the British Grand Prix. Now Rosberg, who won his sixth pole of the season and the 10th of his career, is set to increase his 14-point advantage. That this is Hungary will deepen Hamilton’s wound, for this is one of his favourite tracks; victory tomorrow would be the British driver’s fifth here and see him overtake Michael Schumacher as the most successful driver at this circuit. The scenario looks out of the question now, as he will once again start at the back of the grid.
As with last week’s German Grand Prix and the opening race of the season in Australia, Hamilton was blameless as his Mercedes went up in flames. Last week Hamilton surged through the pack, from 20th to third, in a great piece of damage limitation, but a podium place will be much harder to achieve on this track, where overtaking is more difficult.
He looked thoroughly dejected as he walked away from his smoking car, his left hand on his helmet. Before leaving the track, he said: “We’ll have to replace the engine and gearbox, but with that penalty it’s a good thing – I can’t go any further back [on the grid]. He left the track early, in abject dismay, though not before talking about his woes: “We’ll have to replace the engine and gearbox [meaning a penalty],” he said. “I can’t go any further back [on the grid]. There’s a lot going through my mind, but I just have to try to turn it into positives. I think it’s getting to the point beyond bad luck.”
“There’s a lot going through my mind, but I just have to try to turn it into positives. I think it’s getting to the point beyond bad luck – it’s something else. We just need to do better. That last comment will be seized on by the conspiracy theorists who feel there is a German bias towards Rosberg at Mercedes. Certainly social media was suggesting dark deeds.
“I bailed out of that timed lap I was doing and I was like: ‘I’m going to try to do the second lap’. Then something happened to my brakes. Something on the brake system failed, so I had to engage some settings to try to correct it, then the engines died. This notion was roundly rebuffed by Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ motorsport chief. “It’s clear Lewis has a lot of hardcore fans who are not into the smallest detail and it looks from the outside as if one driver has most of the luck and the other driver is having reliability issues,” he said. “The only thing we can do is keep telling the fans we are working hard to have both cars on the same level and keep pushing hard.
“I then thought: ‘I am right next to the pit entry so I will roll back and get them to fix it’ but then I looked in my mirrors and it was on fire. I was hoping to get it in neutral so I could push it back or something. I was still trying to get it to the garage and maybe they could do something, but they said: ‘Stop, stop, stop’, so I tried to stop, but the brakes weren’t working. The car kept running forward. The engine was working sometimes and sometimes not working, so it is all pretty bad.” “We know what some people are going to think when these things happen and it’s not something we want to see. We must sort out the reliability problems. It is not something that we will accept. I’m extremely upset for Lewis. This is the fourth reliability issue he has had. The championship is very tight and it is a shame for him. I have no doubt that he will be in good spirits tomorrow. He has developed the strengths to recover.”
Niki Lauda, Mercedes non-executive chairman, said after the incident: “The fuel pressure went down and there is a fire so logic tells you the fuel started a fire, but we haven’t had the car back yet. I hope fire didn’t damage too much. Lewis has had so much bad luck. It’s completely unfair. It’s happened to Lewis two races in a row and it’s especially tough that it’s at this circuit where passing is so difficult. He would have been fastest today and would have won the race. Now it doesn’t look like it.” Hamilton said: “I can’t really believe it but that’s the way it is. I just have to try to put my focus on the race, there is nothing else I can do. I can’t say on TV what I thought. These things are sent to try us. I did nothing wrong. I looked in the mirror and my backside was on fire. You saw what happened in the last race. Hopefully I can do something similar.”
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes motorsport chief, said: “I feel so bad for Lewis after he had brake failure in Germany. He had been so strong over the weekend. Behind Rosberg will be Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, with Jenson Button seventh in his McLaren. All eyes will be on Hamilton as he again attempts to carve through the field on this twisty and demanding track. If he does win the championship he will have done it the hard way.
Kimi Raikkonen was another big-name casualty early on when the Ferrari driver failed to go out again after setting a time he thought would be quick enough to get into the second session.
Rosberg finished on pole for the sixth time this season and for the 10th time in his career. He said: “Qualifying three was a really big challenge, the track was changing all the time at the beginning. Starting the lap, I was the first one to arrive at the first corner, it was difficult to judge.
“It was very wet so I did take it a bit easy and I managed to avoid crashing. It was just massively difficult down there. From then on, it was easier as it started drying again. My last lap, it was nice to nail it.”
Behind Rosberg will be Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Williams’ rising star Valtteri Bottas, with Britain’s Jenson Button back in seventh in his McLaren.