Hamilton takes commanding Qatar Grand Prix pole

Lewis Hamilton beat his Formula 1 title rival Max Verstappen to secure pole position for the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix.

Hamilton will start a grand prix from pole position for the first time since Hungary nearly three months ago with two laps good enough to top Q3.

The seven-time world champion’s first Q3 effort was 0.162s faster than Verstappen but he found four tenths on his final lap to improve to a 1m20.827s.

Red Bull’s Verstappen had no answer for Hamilton’s pace as he ended up 0.455s adrift of the Mercedes.

It was later announced that Verstappen will face a stewards’ hearing on Sunday over an alleged breach of yellow flag rules.

Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top three for Mercedes, albeit six tenths off, while Pierre Gasly was fourth despite picking up a puncture on his final flying lap.

The AlphaTauri driver ran wide over the kerbs in the final sector of his last lap, ripping off his front wing and suffering a puncture that would force him to grind to a halt on the pit straight.

His stricken car didn’t bring out the yellow flags for long so he didn’t disrupt the leading runners’ final laps, though the possibility of Verstappen transgressing while the yellows were out is now being investigated.

Fifth place went the way of Fernando Alonso’s Alpine as his team looks to hold onto fifth place in the constructors’ championship – Alpine is currently level on points with AlphaTauri.

McLaren’s Lando Norris beat his former team-mate Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) to sixth place on the grid, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel finally made it back into Q3 for the first time since Spa at the end of August as he took 10th place on the grid.

Q2 was packed with shock eliminations with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez chief among them.

The Mexican wasn’t fast enough on the medium tyres, so he bolted on the soft tyres for a late flier, but he ended up 0.105s short of the medium-shod Ferrari of Sainz in 11th place.

After the session, Perez told his team that it sent him out in the “worst possible window”.

Sainz’s Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc was also dumped out in Q2 despite also fitting the soft tyres and admitted after he was eliminated in 13th place that he had “no idea” what happened.

Leclerc was outqualified by Aston’s Lance Stroll, but qualified ahead of McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who failed to reach Q3 for the first time since Turkey a month ago. George Russell rounded out the Q2 dropouts in 15th place.

Alfa Romeo’s outgoing Formula 1 drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi were eliminated in Q1 in 16th and 18th places respectively. The second Williams of Nicholas Latifi, who failed to reach the chequered flag in time to start his final flying lap, split the Alfa duo in 17th place.

Haas duo Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin were the two slowest drivers in qualifying, but 2.4s separated them as Mazepin struggled with a broken front wing in the early stages of Q1 and no FP2 or FP3 running.

Qualifying Results