Lewis Hamilton decision angers Wolff, Red Bull ready Max Verstappen replacement

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F1: Verstappen 'most nervous he's felt' when learning to drift cars

Lewis Hamilton equalled his worst qualifying performance of the season in an incident-hit session at the Circuit Zandvoort on Saturday as Max Verstappen clinched pole position again for Sunday’s race. The Briton was off the pace as the track dried out from the earlier rain and Mercedes got their timings wrong as Hamilton crashed out of Q2 to line up 13th on the grid, while his team-mate George Russell snatched an impressive third.

But Verstappen was once again in supreme form despite Lando Norris’ best efforts. The championship leader was over half a second clear of the McLaren as his closest challenger and put Sergio Perez in his shadow as well, with the Mexican nowhere near matching his team-mate for pace as he could only qualify seventh.

Charles Leclerc and Logan Sargeant both ensured it would be a close-run finish in Q3 after crashing into the barriers, bringing out the red flag on both occasions. Verstappen, however, was unfazed as he looks set to make it nine wins in a row and 13 for Red Bull on Sunday.

But for Hamilton and Mercedes, there is still quite a long way to go before they can even think about getting close to Verstappen and Red Bull.

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  • Lewis Hamilton decision blasted by Wolff07:52

    • Lewis Hamilton decision blasted by Wolff

    Toto Wolff slammed Yuki Tsunoda’s ‘ugly’ impeding of Lewis Hamilton which may have cost him a place in Q2 of qualifying, after the AlphaTauri star was hit with a three-place grid penalty.

    The stewards ruled that Tsunoda had held up Hamilton on the track and a visibily annoyed Wolff ranted about the decision that cost Hamilton dearly as he starts 13th.

    “The impeding is really ugly to look at,” the visibly annoyed Austrian told reporters in the Zandvoort paddock, including Mirror Sport. “The answer is penalise, penalise, penalise. If you know that you don’t go to prison when you cheat your taxes, you cheat your taxes. I can’t understand why these things are not penalised.

    “It was clear impeding with some drivers in Q1 and Tsunoda, he’s a nice guy, but he impeded Lewis on his quick lap and didn’t move from the dry line. It didn’t look like much but going from a dry to a wet line cost him.

    “I think a tenth would have put him into Q3. We need to be harsh with penalties and then people will look in their mirrors.”

    Good morning!

    Hello and welcome to Express Sport‘s rolling coverage of the latest F1 news ahead of today’s race for the Dutch Grand Prix.

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