Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix was marred by a dense clang successful highly bedewed conditions involving Daniel Ricciardo's teammate Lando Norris, whose hopes of a archetypal ever rod went begging astatine Eau Rouge.
The Briton mislaid power of his McLaren, his car spinning aggregate times from 1 broadside of the way to the different aft the rear extremity deed the barriers. He lone had 1 of his 4 tyres intact aft the smash.
Norris was taken to the aesculapian centre for precautionary checks earlier being fixed the all-clear and volition beryllium acceptable to contention Sunday, but the infinitesimal caused outrage among drivers, particularly erstwhile satellite champion Sebastien Vettel.
The four-time champ, connected way successful his Aston Martin, was unhappy the league was allowed to spell connected and expressed choler erstwhile helium radioed his squad calling for the league to beryllium halted.
"Well what the f--- did I say? What did I say!? Red flag! Unnecessary," an agitated Vettel, said connected the squad vigor arsenic helium pulled up alongside the clang site.
Vettel said helium spoke to FIA contention manager Michael Masi aft the league to aerial his concerns.
"I deliberation Michael is not arrogant of what happened either," Vettel told Sky Sports.
"It's ever casual to play Captain Hindsight. I deliberation we request to find a mode that we perceive much to the accusation that we have.
"Inside the garage, it's precise limited, it's similar looking retired of a window. Three kilometres that way, I person nary clue.
"When I went down to Eau Rouge and up the hill, it was a batch of h2o and was calling for a reddish flag. The information is, the league should not person started astatine all.
"So I deliberation the radical that were lasting connected the Kemmel Straight, they were successful the rainfall and possibly we should person listened to those."
Nine cars took to the way erstwhile the shoot-out resumed aft a 40-minute reddish emblem intervention.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen mastered the rainfall to assertion pole, snatching the fastest clip successful qualifying from daze contender George Russell of Williams.
Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes volition commencement connected the 2nd enactment arsenic helium goes for his 100th Grand Prix win, Daniel Ricciardo's McLaren completing the 2nd row.
Russell was poised to springiness Williams an astonishing archetypal rod since 2001 with seconds of Q3 to go.
But the young driver's superb clip was narrowly shaded by Verstappen successful the Dutch driver's last flying lap.
Russell inactive had the restitution of placing successful beforehand of Hamilton, with Russell successful contention alongside Valtteri Bottas for the 2nd Mercedes thrust successful 2022.
For a regular dose of the champion of the breaking quality and exclusive contented from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!
English (US) ·