Ferrari remained strong in the 2018 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix as Kimi Raikkonen took pole from teammate Sebastian Vettel as they both beat Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton at Monza.
Q1:
Ferrari started the first part of the Italian GP qualifying session in style with Vettel (1m20.542s) leading teammate Raikkonen (1m20.722s) as Mercedes’ Hamilton (1m20.810s) was third from Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m21.280s).
But at the lower end, everything changed in the final few minutes of the session with improvements from several drivers for them to make it into Q2 and bump some of the favourites out of qualifying. Only for the second time this season both the Williams made it into Q2.
And with Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly also improving, it bumped Racing Point Force India’s Sergio Perez (1m21.888s) to 16th after the team elected to wait it out in the pits and were then unfortunately knocked out by only 0.001s.
Also out were the two Sauber drivers with Charles Leclerc (1m21.889s) in 17th and Marcus Ericsson (1m22.048s) 19th sandwiching Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley (1m21.934s) as McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne (1m22.085s) was dead last in 20th – again.
Q2:
The second part of qualifying had Ferrari stretching out a bit more with Vettel clocking a 1m19.629s from Hamilton’s 1m19.798s with Raikkonen (1m19.846s) and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen (1m20.333s) in fourth.
After Williams shocked with both cars into Q2, Lance Stroll in fact made it into Q3 as well to register the team’s first Top 10 result of the 2018 season – on a track where the Canadian qualified on the front row under damp conditions.
Further behind, a scrap between McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m21.669s) resulted in the Dane losing out on a Q3 position as he finished 11th. Replays showed Alonso trying to take a tow from Magnussen and overtake him in Turn 1.
However, the Dane tried to hold on to his place but it resulted in both their laps getting washed out. Alonso (1m22.568s) finished 13th behind Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin (1m21.732s) with both Ricciardo and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg not setting a lap time.
Q3:
The fight for pole got intensified after the first runs with Hamilton clocking a 1m19.390s to take provisional pole pushing Raikkonen (1m19.459s) and Vettel (1m19.497s) to second and third respectively with all three breaking the lap record already.
The order changed on the second run with both the Ferrari going quicker than Hamilton to register a Ferrari 1-2 in their home grand prix at Monza but it wasn’t Vettel to take it as Raikkonen trumped him to pole with a 1m19.119s lap time.
Vettel (1m19.280s) almost celebrated on the radio before he was told that Raikkonen took the top spot. Hamilton ended up third (1m19.294s) with the Top 3 finishing within 0.175s of each other.
Some way off was Bottas (1m19.656s) in fourth – the last driver in the 1m19s bracket from Verstappen (1m20.615s) with Haas’ Romain Grosjean (1m20.936s) in sixth leading the rest of the group with Renault’s Carlos Sainz (1m21.041s) behind him.
After Perez was out in Q1 itself, Racing Point Force India’s Esteban Ocon (1m21.099s) made it into Q3 to be eighth as Gasly (1m21.350s) and Stroll (1m21.627s) rounded out the Top 10 finishers.