Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton praised his team after yet another dominant performance in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. Even with a scruffy second flying lap, Hamilton pipped Bottas by +0.059 seconds on the first run of the session to secure his 92nd career pole position.
With Verstappen seven-tenths behind in third for Red Bull, Hamilton applauded the work ethic of the team, despite their current dominance.
Speaking after securing pole, Hamilton said: “[The second lap] wasn’t a great lap.
“The first one was decent which did the job thankfully. These guys have done such an awesome job. We are constantly learning.
“This is the first time I have been here in Barcelona when it has been this hot. Physically it is tough, it is so fast around here. It is the fastest we have ever been round here so the forces through the body is pretty intense but the tyres are what we are really struggling with.
“You see us crawling around on the out lap just to keep the temperature out of the tyres. Even with those slow laps, you have temperatures rising. That is what we try to manage on the laps. ”
The two Mercedes drivers battled each other during the opening lap of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix last week and Hamilton is aware he needs a perfect start to fend off his rivals behind.
“This is such a long way down to turn one here,” he added.
“The job is not done, that’s for sure. It is very hard to follow here. Positioning is good. It will be hard to hold position but that is what I have got to work on and try and get the best start I can.”
The two Mercedes were once again the class of the field, qualifying seven tenths clear of Max Verstappen’s third placed Red Bull but with only +0.059 separating the team-mates on the front row.
Racing Point line up fourth and fifth with Sergio Perez leading Lance Stroll.
Alex Albon was seven tenths off the pace of Red Bull team-mate Verstappen but starts sixth. Having shown strong race pace on Friday, Albon will hope to stay in the podium picture heading into Sunday.
Racing Point had sat towards the bottom end of the top ten across all three practice sessions, but Perez closed out Q1 second by only +0.080 seconds.
Dropping out of the session was Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, Haas struggling to deliver on strong Friday pace, the two Williams drivers and Antonio Giovinazzi.
Kimi Raikkonen escaped Q1 for the first time in 2020 but his first run in Q2 demonstrated that this was as far as he would go – his time over a second off the cut-off time for making the top ten shoot-out.
However, the Finn was able to jump Esteban Ocon for 14th, Ocon’s session being compromised by an incident late in final practice.
After Daniel Ricciardo ended Friday in fourth, Renault will be scratching its head as to where the pace went after the Australian also dropped out in Q2, qualifying 13th.
Sebastian Vettel too made his exit in Q2. The third time in 2020 the four-time champion has failed to make the final stage of qualifying, Vettel will start 11th.
Ferrari had given Vettel a new chassis for the weekend after finding a small fault with his existing car, but he is still searching for pace, missing the cut-off by only +0.002 seconds.
However, Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc could only manage ninth place in Q3, so this may not be an indication so much of Vettel’s form, but simply of where Ferrari sits in the pecking order at present.
Source: gpfans.com