Hamilton claims 100th F1 pole at Spanish GP

Lewis Hamilton beat Max Verstappen by 0.036s to take pole position for Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, marking his 100th pole in grand prix racing.

The start of qualifying was delayed by 10 minutes due to repairs to the barriers on the outside of Turn 9, after a crash in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine support race.

From there on the F1 session took place without further delays or interruptions, but Q3 did begin with a spin for Sergio Perez that threatened to affect the pole battle.

Perez had dipped his left tyres into the gravel when he tried to turn in for Turn 13, and his spin caused brief yellow flags, though these were cleared quickly enough for Hamilton, Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas to complete fast laps.

And though Verstappen had laid down the gauntlet with a super-fast time in Q2, it was Hamilton who took the early lead in the third segment, 0.036s clear of Verstappen and a tenth up on Bottas.

And with none of the three improving on their second attempt, the order out front remained static when the chequered flag flew.

But there was a change right below, as Charles Leclerc – trailing his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr after the first attempt – moved up to fourth place.

Esteban Ocon wound up a standout fifth for Alpine, ahead of Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren, who didn’t manage to start his second push lap in Q3 before the chequered flag fell.

Perez did manage a clean lap with his second attempt, but was only eighth, having been unconvincing through Q1 and Q2 and slower than Verstappen by over nine tenths in the end.

He was still ahead of Lando Norriis (McLaren) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine), trailing their team-mates by four tenths and six tenths respectively.

After getting outqualified by new team-mate Sebastian Vettel for the first time in Portugal, Lance Stroll got one back over Vettel here as the two Aston Martins missed Q3.

Stroll was just 0.006s of deposing Alonso from the pole shootout, while Pierre Gasly fitted in between him and Vettel, the AlphaTauri man missing out on Q3 for the first time this season.

Behind Vettel, Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and George Russell (Williams) completed the order in the second segment, Russell maintaining his perfect record of making Q2 this year but having no fresh softs to use in the actual session.

AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda was the surprise elimination in Q1, ending up 16th after a last-second improvement from Russell.

Though Tsunoda – who angrily radioed “I can’t f***ing believe this car” to the team after his elimination – was just 0.007s off advancing, the rest of the drivers exiting in Q1 did so by a sizeable margin.

Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen in 17th was more than three tenths off the cut-off, represented by team-mate Giovinazzi, with Mick Schumacher another two tenths down.

But Schumacher did beat Nicholas Latifi, marking the first time this season a Haas has outqualified a Williams, while also inflicting a seven-tenths defeat on his team-mate and fellow rookie Nikita Mazepin.

Qualifying Results