Lewis Hamilton makes F1 history by claiming 100th pole position

Hamilton tijdens de kwalificatie in Spanje. — Photo: © LAT Images

Spanish Grand Prix

Hamilton makes F1 history by claiming 100th pole position

Mercedes driver beat Verstappen by just 0.034secs

Ian Parkes

Saturday 8 May 2021 16:16

Lewis Hamilton made F1 history by becoming the first driver to claim 100 poles after a shoot-out in the Spanish sun with title rival Max Verstappen.

After Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas was quickest in Q1 and Red Bull driver Verstappen in Q2 for the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton delivered when it mattered most around the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona in the top 10 shoot-out.

Hamilton's first lap in Q3 of one minute 16.741secs was good enough as neither he nor Bottas or Verstappen improved on their second runs.

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Barcelona has proven a happy hunting ground for Hamilton as he will start on pole for the fifth time in the last six races at the track.

Behind the Hamilton-Verstappen front row, Bottas finished 0.142s behind the Briton.

Unusually, compared to Verstappen and Bottas who will start on the soft tyres they used in Q2, Hamilton will set off on a scrubbed set of Pirelli rubber, effectively a lap older than those of his team-mate and the Dutchman.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz start a superb fourth and sixth either side of a stunning performance from Alpine's Esteban Ocon who lines up fifth.

McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo out-qualified team-mate Lando Norris, with the duo seventh and ninth, sandwiching Sergio Perez in his Red Bull.

Perez had dipped the edge of his front-left tyre into the gravel at turn 13 on his first run in Q3 that spun him around, piling the pressure on for his second outing.

Fernando Alonso in his Alpine will start 10th.

For Aston Martin, hopes were high the upgrades to its floor that were introduced on Lance Stroll's car last weekend in Portugal and handed to Sebastian Vettel for this weekend would deliver top-10 places. proved unfounded.

Stroll will start 11th after missing out on Q3 to Alonso by eight-thousandths of a second, with Vettel a tenth of a second back in 13th, sandwiching AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly.

Antonio Giovinazzi lines up 14th for Alfa Romeo ahead of Williams' George Russell, who had used up his quota of qualifying tyres in Q1 and will line up 15th.

Following a 10-minute delay for barrier repairs due to a crash in a support race, Q1 proved to be fascinating, notably for the occasional traffic jams that occurred through the final chicane as the drivers prepared themselves for their flying laps.

Norris, in particular, was held up considerably on his first hot lap, losing six-tenths of a second in the final sector that put him in danger of the drop zone going into the second run from which he emerged quickest as track evolution was striking.

The stewards, after initially noting the incident, later decided they would investigate post-session.

The significant name to lose out was AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda who starts 16th, compared to team-mate Gasly who was fifth fastest after Q1, with the Japanese driver expressing his anger as he screamed over the radio: "I can't f***ing believe this car!"

Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen lines up 17th ahead of Haas' Mick Schumacher as the German managed to out-qualify a Williams.

Nicholas Latifi, though, damaged the underneath of his car after running over a 'sausage' kerb that remarkably cracked the left-wing mirror due to the vibrations.

Starting 20th for the fourth consecutive race is Nikita Mazepin in his Haas, with the Russian seven-tenths of a second down on team-mate Schumacher.