Qualifying woe for Hamilton in rain-soaked Monza
Saturday, 13 Sep 2008 21:27
Hamilton spent too long in the pits during qualifying
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Lewis Hamilton could only qualify in 15th place for the Italian grand prix after heavy rain affected the Saturday session in Monza.
Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel will be on pole position after he dominated the final 15 minutes of qualifying. He completed a circuit of the track in one minute 35.555 seconds, over two seconds ahead of McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.
Hamilton's rival for the drivers' world championship, Felipe Massa, failed to take advantage of Hamilton's under-performance by putting his Ferrari on sixth place for tomorrow's grid.
The Toro Rosso team enjoyed an excellent day with Vettel's team-mate Sebastien Bourdais finishing qualifying in fourth place just behind Mark Webber in the Red Bull.
Defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen did not fare much better than Hamilton, qualifying in 14th place for the race.
Hamilton's troubles came at the start of the second part of qualifying. Although rain had been lashing down from start, it had relented slightly at the beginning of Q2 and by then the cars had also created a 'dry line'.
Inexplicably Hamilton was the only driver not to immediately leave the pits to take advantage of the improved conditions and left himself with a mountain to climb when the rain began to come down harder again.
The Briton struggled in the wetter conditions and aquaplaned as he tried to play catch-up but could not compete with the times done by the other drivers minutes beforehand.
The qualifying result is Hamilton's worst ever during his two seasons of Formula One.
McLaren will hope Kovalainen can win the race to help minimise the potential points gain Massa could make against Hamilton in the championship standings.