Hamilton takes Mugello pole as Ocon spin thwarts Bottas

Lewis Hamilton overturned Mercedes Formula 1 team-mate Valtteri Bottas’s weekend-long superiority at Mugello to take pole for the Tuscan Grand Prix.

Bottas had been fastest in all three practice sessions and Q1, before Hamilton got ahead of him for the first time by 0.013s in Q2.

Hamilton then beat Bottas by 0.059s on the first Q3 runs, and though he couldn’t improve on his 1m15.144s at his second attempt, Bottas couldn’t do so either as he encountered yellow flags for Esteban Ocon’s spinning Renault and abandoned the lap.

That meant Hamilton took pole position for the seventh time in nine 2020 attempts so far.

Red Bull was unable to put Mercedes under as much pressure as it had in practice, with Max Verstappen 0.365s off Hamilton in third and joined on row two by team-mate Alex Albon.

Charles Leclerc starred to put Ferrari fifth on the grid for what’s billed as its 1000th F1 grand prix, ending the team’s two-race absence from Q3.

His team-mate Sebastian Vettel only just made it through Q1 in 15th place, and ultimately qualified down in 14th – sandwiched by customer Ferrari engine runners Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. He was half a second slower than Leclerc in Q2.

Despite not running the team’s upgrade package, Sergio Perez was the faster Racing Point in sixth – though he and team-mate Lance Stroll will swap places when Perez’s penalty for hitting Raikkonen in practice two is applied.

The Renault-powered cars fill eighth to 11th places, headed by Daniel Ricciardo.

McLaren driver Carlos Sainz Jr was slowest to set a Q3 time but is ahead of Ocon thanks to the Renault’s spin. Sainz’s team-mate Lando Norris missed out on Q3 for the first time this year and starts 11th.

Shock Monza winner Pierre Gasly faced a different flavour of surprise this week as he was eliminated in Q1 for the first time in a year.

In a session where under half a second covered eighth to 18th places, AlphaTauri driver Gasly found himself 16th, missing the Q2 cut by 0.053s.

His team-mate Daniil Kvyat qualified 12th, compromised by running off the road at the first Arrabbiata on his final Q2 lap.

Antonio Giovinazzi, the Williams pair and Kevin Magnussen completed the quintet of early departures behind Gasly.

Qualifying Results