Spanish GP Quali : Mercedes lock front row
Hamilton beats Bottas to pole in sweltering Spanish GP qualifying as Verstappen takes P3. Mercedes cars clearly being superior than the rest.
Mercedes secured the front row of the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix but third place for Max Verstappen puts him in a strong position to attack in tomorrow’s race.
Lewis Hamilton edged team mate Valtteri Bottas for pole position by less than a tenth of a second. Further back, Sergio Perez claimed fourth on his return, while Sebastian Vettel again failed to reach Q3.
Unstoppable Mercedes
This was the second week in a row that the pole position margin has been 0.063s or lower, and Hamilton’s fourth pole in six races and 92nd of his career, as he also passed 150 front row starts.
Mercedes have made Barcelona their own in the last decade, taking six front row lock-outs in the last seven years, and they showed no signs of loosening that grip as Hamilton and Bottas ended the one hour session seven tenths of a second quicker than anyone else.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, winner of the last race at Silverstone, was their closest challenger in third, the Dutchman achieving the first top-three start in Spain of his F1 career.
Racing Point in good touch
The controversy surrounding Racing Point refuses to die. They have appealed against the Brake duct verdict by the FIA. At the same time Ferrari and Renault have lodged their complains too, asking for more clarification and transparency. The rivals do not seem to be very happy with the ‘Pink Mercedes’.
Sergio Perez looks in fine form after staying away from the paddock for two weeks. Racing Point has good single lap pace. Both Sergio and Lance did well, qualifying at 4th and 5th respectively. Their race pace is still questionable. Let’s hope that the return of Sergio bodes well for the team.
Red Bull : Max shines, Alex not so much
Max Verstappen extracting as much as possible from the Honda powered Red Bull car. Coming third is the best he could do.
Albon leaves us a lot to be desired. He managed a respectable 6th. In Q2 he was behind Pierre Gasly but managed to do well in Q3. Red Bull will be having high hopes from the Thai driver to bag in some good points and come close to his team mate.
McLaren : Both drivers in top 10
The quest for third spot in the team rankings is turning into a nail biter. McLaren and Racing Point both are very close. Lando and Sainz managed to be Eight and Seventh respectively , pretty much as per their expectation. It all boils down to the race now.
Ferrari : They seem to have lost their mojo
Charles actually was doing quite well in the Practice sessions, regularly being in top 5. However the quali pace was lacking. He could extract only a lowly 9th from the Ferrari engine.
Vettel couldn’t even manage a Q3 qualification, although to be fair he missed by a very narrow margin. Ferrari and Vettel need to sit down and sought out their problems.
As for the rest, Pierre Gasly dis a spectacular job once again, coming as much as P5 in Q2. However in Q3 he managed only P10 and his team mate Daniil Kvyat P12.
Renault seemed out of touch, with Ricciardo managing P13 and Ocon P15. They need to pull up their socks especially given that the Renault higher management is there at the Race Track for this race.
Kimi Raikkonen finally managed to come out of Q1 and George Russell COULD NOT come of out Q1. HAAS showed hopes in the practice sessions but they were behind again when it mattered.
Final Spanish GP Quali classification
Spanish GP qualifying highlights video.