The seven-time World Champion was unable to progress past Q2 and was placed 13th on the grid for the season's first sprint, in which he finished P14.
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Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has dismissed reports that he and Lewis Hamilton had a heated exchange during qualifying at Imola on Friday. The seven-time World Champion was unable to progress past Q2 and was placed 13th on the grid for the season’s first sprint. It could have been worse, as Hamilton only missed qualifying by four-thousandths of a second. The Briton was seen exchanging heated words in the Mercedes garage, with both himself and Wolff appearing animated in their exchange.
“That’s all internal stuff, so I won’t share that. But we’ll just keep working. It is what it is, it’s kind of…(shrugs). We’ll just keep working hard. Each weekend’s a rescue,” Hamilton had said when asked about the matter.
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Wolff, on the other hand, has insisted that there was no disagreement at all, only a shared frustration with the team’s current situation. The reigning World Champions have had a bit of a downfall, with the team languishing in the midfield after failing to challenge for victories. The wet conditions during qualifying were not kind to the W13, who had their worst qualifying performance since the Japanese Grand Prix in 2012. It’s a situation that annoys Wolff, as well as Hamilton, who missed out on the championship last season. Wolff later admitted to Sky F1 that the two were just venting at each other.
“There was no disagreement at all,” said Wolff. “It doesn’t go any closer like the two of us are. We were just so angry about the session overall, him and I, and he vented at me, I vented at him but it was absolutely about the same thing.”
“It’s just a degree of frustration that we are not able to generate the grip on the first lap and yesterday was all about first lap. Then it red-flagged and we weren’t able to make it into Q3 and it’s so frustrating,” the Mercedes chief added.
Max Verstappen won the first Sprint of 2022, passing Charles Leclerc with two laps to go and securing pole position for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on Sunday. The grid for this Sprint was set in the wet qualifying session on Friday, with Verstappen taking pole over Leclerc and Lando Norris leading Kevin Magnussen off the second row. The top eight, rather than the top three, now receive points in a redesigned format, providing even more motivation to give it their all on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
