During the 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton grabbed his 5th pole position of the year. When he took to the press conference room, the Briton and Max Verstappen shared a light moment between themselves.
As it turned out, Lewis Hamilton noted, sotto voce to Verstappen, that there were a lot of girls in the media pen.
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How did Lewis Hamilton do during qualifying?
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When actually referring to the qualifying session itself, he said, “It’s been such a long slog trying to get this pole position. Yesterday was quite wobbly, so I had to really recompose myself last night and come back focused. I managed to dial in the car with great work from my engineers. Mechanics continuing to do a great job.”
With this incredible pole position, Lewis Hamilton maintained Mercedes’ 100% pole record in Abu Dhabi since 2014. Now, he has it all to do to maintain the team’s 100% win record since 2014. Lewis Briton has won here for the team in 2014, 2016 and 2018 – adding to his 2011 Abu Dhabi victory with McLaren.
However, Max Verstappen will surely try and stop him from the front row of the grid. This is because, even though Valtteri Bottas qualified 2nd, he started the race from the back of the pack.
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In the end, Lewis Hamilton stormed to a comfortable victory, 16 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen. Meanwhile, 3rd-placed Charles Leclerc ended his race 43 seconds adrift, ahead of a recovering Valtteri Bottas, and Sebastian Vettel. Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, Lando Norris, Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz Jr completed the point-scorers.
Little did anyone realise that this would be the last time anyone stood on the podium for a while. With the COVID-19 crisis showing no signs of slowing down, Formula One and several other major sporting events have been suspended. With each passing week, F1 has witnessed several races drop off from the calendar, one-by-one. The latest one on the hit list is the Belgian Grand Prix, though there is a chance of the Austrian GP kicking off the season at last.