Lewis Hamilton reveals he was not in favour of giving Charles Leclerc a tow in F1 Italian GP qualifying

Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he was not in favor of giving Charles Leclerc a tow in the F1 Italian GP, as Ferrari drivers could only qualify P4 and P5 after threatening for pole. The race is in Monza, which is home to the passionate Tifosi, and if there is one place the drivers from Scuderia want to excel, it is here.

Throughout the race weekend, both Ferrari drivers have looked very competitive on track. Even in Q1 and Q2, Charles Leclerc was there and thereabouts for the most part, and even on his first push lap in Q3, he was less than a tenth away from the fastest lap.

For the F1 Italian GP, Lewis Hamilton has a 5-place grid penalty, and therefore, he was always going to be at a disadvantage. There were suggestions that Ferrari could potentially use the 7x F1 champion for a tow to help Charles Leclerc challenge for pole.

This is precisely why when the two Ferrari drivers came out for their final laps, and it was Lewis Hamilton behind Charles Leclerc, it left many confused. As a result, neither of the two Ferrari drivers had a stellar qualifying, and ultimately the duo would have to settle for P4 and P5.

Talking to Motorsport, the question of the tow came up for Lewis again, to which the driver revealed that he was not in favor of giving a tow to his teammate, especially since he had a 5-place grid penalty. He said,

"Do I feel that they should have? No, it's not something I ever did in any of my other teams, and I'm sacrificing one of the drivers, and I've already got a five-place penalty, so points-wise I needed to be as high as I could,"

Lewis Hamilton happy with the progress that he's making with the cat

Lewis Hamilton ended the session just a tenth down on Charles Leclerc and would line up in P10 for the race on Sunday. Looking back on his race weekend, the British driver was happy with the progress that he's been making, as he said,

"I'm happy with the progress through the weekend," he said. "I think the progress from last weekend and then carried that through this week. So I've been relatively happy with the car, the progress from P1, the car felt great. I think that's where it felt the best and then we went into P2, we made changes into qualifying, and I think it was the most we could get from it."

He added,

"Obviously, with the penalty and everyone being so close, it's going to be tough to overtake," he continued. "But we've got a good top speed, so I'm hoping that I can try to make up some ground. I think that [I] probably need a good start, a good first lap, a good strategy. We'll go away now and try to figure out what we can do to try to optimise everything."

While Charles Leclerc starts the race in P4, Lewis Hamilton will be in P10 and will be hoping to make up places early on. It is hard to pull off overtakes at Monza, but a late-race safety car could certainly spice things up.