Lewis Hamilton pips Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas to Spanish Grand Prix pole

Spanish Grand Prix

Hamilton pips Mercedes team-mate Bottas to Spanish Grand Prix pole

Mercedes lockout the front row in Spain

Sam Hall

Saturday 15 August 2020 16:11

Lewis Hamilton scores his fifth Spanish Grand Prix pole as Mercedes complete yet another front row lockout.

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.

Hamilton set his one minute 15.584 pole time on his first run of Q3 and Valtteri Bottas also set his best time with his first effort.

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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.

Q1 was a far closer affair than any of the free practice sessions would have led you to believe with all 15 drivers to escape the session setting times within a second of Hamilton's 1:16.872 benchmark.

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.

Before you go...

No further action for Ocon-Magnussen incident

Hamilton tops final practice as Ocon crash ends the action early