Lewis Hamilton forces Max Verstappen to eat humble pie after rash criticism: It’s a good thing

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Max Verstappens’ dominating 2023 race could finally come to an end this weekend after Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton snatched pole position from the Dutchman ahead of the Hungarian GP on Saturday. Interestingly, the Red Bull driver lost P1 just a day after criticizing the new qualifying format. With Hamilton recording his first F1 pole position since 2021, the Briton had Verstappen eat his words.

Ahead of qualifying, Verstappen and Hamilton raised concerns about the new format. The great rivals made the same point, explaining how this qualifying format robbed the fans who had gathered in the stands to see the cars on track.

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Verstappen, in particular, explained that he deliberately limited his number of laps in free practice because he didn’t want to waste too many tire sets. This was so he could maximize his qualifying performance. However, after taking a look at Hamilton’s assault lap during Saturday’s session, the new format seems to have changed Verstappens’ mind.

Hamilton forces Verstappen to change his mind on qualifying format

For a very long time, Max Verstappen explained that he would like to see the teams come together, so that he could have more competitive races. Now that Hamilton and Lando Norris are closer, he’s adamant the new format has a huge role to play in that.

Asked about the same, he said during his post-qualifying press conference, Of course, for everyone, it looks good. I’m just not happy with how my qualifying went because of the balance. It has nothing to do with the gap with the other teams. But of course I think qualifying was very exciting because in every session you didn’t know who was going to be the fastest. I think that’s a good thing.

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There were also several other surprises with this particular format, with Mercedes George Russell knocked out of Q1. Then, to the great dismay of the Tifosi, Carlos Sainz only managed a disappointing P11 place before the race. However, the most shocking result came in the form of Alfa Romeos Zhou Guanyu finishing fifth. The Chinese driver will start the race in P5, ahead of Charles Leclerc.

It wasn’t just Guanyu who looked impressive, but also Valtteri Bottas in the other Alfa Romeo as he qualified seventh on the grid for the main race. Meanwhile, despite many teams, including Mercedes in particular, benefiting from this format, Toto Wolff said he was still not a fan of it.

Toto Wolff slams odd qualifying format despite Lewis Hamilton pole position

Shortly after Lewis Hamilton clinched his first pole position of the season, Toto Wolff expressed his concerns over the new qualifying format. The Austrian thinks this format is weird as neither team knows where they stand due to performance differences with different tire compounds.

He went on to explain (quoted by gpfans.com) how Mercedes was afraid of its own performance due to the use of different tire compounds. Wolff thinks the Silver Arrows were very poor on the medium compound tires but had fantastic pace on the softs.

Considering Mercedes had such a drastic difference in pace between softs and mids, they will need to be at the top of their strategy game if Hamilton is to keep Max Verstappen behind him in the main race. And if they do, then Mercedes could be the first team other than Red Bull to win a Grand Prix in 2023 and break the latter’s incredible winning streak.

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