Sports

Hamilton in 2nd bid to match Schumacher’s record

Madrid, Oct 8 (efe-epa).- Lewis Hamilton will get his second chance to equal Michael Schumacher’s record at Nurburgring this weekend after missing his first opportunity at Sochi last month.

The British Mercedes driver, leader in the Formula One World Championship and six-time world champion, could have drawn level with the retired German Ferrari great two weeks ago in Russia but lost the race to his teammate Valtteri Bottas.

He will get a second opportunity to put himself even with Schumacher’s 91-win record at the Eifel Grand Prix at the Nürburgring circuit in Germany.

Hamilton finished third in the Russian Grand Prix on 27 September after he was handed a 10-second penalty for a pair of practice start infringements on his laps to the grid.

His Finnish teammate Bottas won the competition with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen taking second place.

Although Hamilton missed his seventh victory of the year his lead in the World Cup is still huge with 205 points, 44 more than Bottas and 77 over Verstappen.

The Nordschleife, almost 23 km long and previously known as The Green Hell, was where triple world champion Niki Lauda almost died when his vehicle was engulfed in flames after a crash in 1976.

After the accident the circuit was reconstructed to make it smoother and straighter with safety barriers installed, it now has 15 corners and is 5,148 meters long.

The drivers are due to complete 60 laps on Sunday, a distance of 308 km.

Training will begin on Friday with the qualifiers to take place on Saturday to determine the starting positions.

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