Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton took F1 Spanish GP pole from Valtteri Bottas by 0.059s with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen in third.
Q1:
The first part of F1 Spanish GP qualifying at Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona had Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton leading Racing Point’s Sergio Perez and Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, with Valtteri Bottas in fourth as the lower half was mighty close.
Renault managed to get the front-end fixed for Esteban Ocon after his FP3 shunt, for which neither him nor Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, were penalised. The Dane, though, was once again under investigation for Turn 2 incident with Williams’ Nicholas Latifi.
The fight for Q2 got interesting with Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen just making it in as Haas’ Magnussen (1m17.908s) missed out in 16th from Romain Grosjean (1m18.089s) with Williams’ George Russell (1m18.099s) also missing out on a Q2 slot to be 18th.
Teammate Latifi (1m18.532s) was 19th with Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi (1m18.697s) 20th after his excursion over the final corner kerb. Replays showed heavy traffic in the final few corners for track position which may have caught out some F1 drivers.
Q2:
The second part in F1 Spanish GP saw no strategy gamble with everyone using the soft compound rather than trying the medium. Mercedes’ Hamilton led the way from Bottas with Red Bull’s Verstappen rounding out the Top 3 in a secured position.
The fight for the Top 10 was on as Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel did not make it into Q3 to be 11th but he was just 0.002s behind the 10th placed driver Lando Norris. In fact, he was just 0.005s behind the ninth placed Alexander Albon.
AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat (1m17.192s) did well in 12th with Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m17.198s) only 13th from Alfa Romeo’s Raikkonen (1m17.386s) – on the medium compound – and Renault’s Ocon (1m17.567s) 15th.
Q3:
The fight for F1 Spanish GP pole had Mercedes’ Hamilton taking provisional top spot with a 1m15.584s lap, which was just 0.059s quicker than Bottas as Red Bull’s Verstappen steadied in third ahead of the two Racing Point drivers.
There were no improvements as Hamilton took pole in F1 Spanish GP from Bottas (1m15.643s) with Verstappen (1m16.292s) in third. The Finn was up in the second sector but he made no improvements in the final one to miss on the top spot.
Racing Point’s Sergio Perez (1m16.482s) returned well in fourth from Stroll (1m16.589s) as Red Bull’s Alexander Albon (1m17.029s) improved on his time to be sixth with Carlos Sainz (1m17.044s) edging out McLaren teammate Norris (1m17.084s) as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc (1m17.087s) was ninth and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly (1m17.136s) 10th.
