Lewis Hamilton took pole position – the 100th of his F1 career – for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona for Mercedes on Saturday, round four of the Formula 1 World Championship season in 2021.
Hamilton will start after the one-hour qualifying ahead of Max Verstappen from Red Bull and his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, which is divided into three segments and five cars each retired in Q1 and Q2 before the top 10 shootout of Q3.
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What happened in the first quarter?
The first session, in which all cars are together on the track, has been postponed by 10 minutes due to barrier repairs.
As soon as it started, Bottas set the early pace to 1: 18.005 with medium tires, 0.085 seconds faster than Verstappen, who used softs. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was third fastest ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Hamilton, who were a quarter of a second behind the pace in sixth.
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McLaren’s Lando Norris, whose first run was ruined by traffic, finished first on his second attempt with 1: 17.821 seconds, which was 0.184 seconds faster than Bottas. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc jumped to third place in a second run, just 0.036 seconds before Bottas’ time.
At the first hurdle, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda (who ran far on his fastest lap), Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen, Mick Schumacher (Haas) and Nicholas Latifi (who lost part of his Williams bottom after running far) fell Turn 9) and the second Haas by Nikita Mazepin.
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What happened in the second quarter?
In the second quarter, the protagonists of the pole position hunt renounced the usual practice of driving medium-weight tires – since they wanted to keep them for the race, the top 10 cars will all start the race on softs.
Verstappen set the real speed of his Red Bull free and drove a lap of 1: 16.922 minutes, which was almost half a second ahead of Bottas after the first few runs. Hamilton was third, 0.71 seconds back, with Norris right behind him.
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All but Verstappen ran again, both Mercedes improving their times – Bottas reached the pace in 0.22 seconds, Hamilton close behind him, despite using a set of tires that he had washed in in the first quarter. Sainz jumped up in fourth ahead of Perez.
At that point, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, Gasly, Sebastian Vettel’s second Aston, Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and George Russell (Williams, who had run out of fresh, soft tires) dropped out.
What happened in the third quarter?
In the top 10 shootout, Hamilton set the bar to 1: 16.741 minutes and only missed the yellow flags for Perez, who spun on Turn 13 after dipping his tires into the gravel while turning.
Verstappen was second fastest, 0.036 seconds behind, and Bottas in third place, another tenth behind. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was the best of the others, ahead of Sainz’s Daniel Ricciardo and McLaren.
In the last few runs, Hamilton had a big moment at the final chicane and didn’t improve, but neither Verstappen nor Bottas, confirming Hamilton’s 100th career pole.
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Leclerc improved in his second run, jumping to fourth place ahead of Ocon, Sainz, Ricciardo, Perez, Norris and Fernando Alonso from Alpine.
