Lewis Hamilton clinched pole position for the German Grand Prix after Ferrari’s chance imploded with power unit issues for both Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel.

With Vettel eliminated at the first qualifying stage without posting a lap time due to an airflow issue to his turbo, Leclerc was looking as the favourite to take pole in Q3 having been the quickest up to that point in the session.

But the young Monegasque driver could not make the final stage of qualifying, climbing out of his SF90 racer to console with his team and paved the way clear for Hamilton to snatch pole as Mercedes celebrate their 125 years of motorsport and 200th Grand Prix.

Ferrari stated that a fuel system problem prevented Leclerc from taking part in the top ten shootout.

Hamilton then dominated Q3, setting the benchmark of a 1:11.767 on his first flyer, which was good enough to take his 87th career-pole position after the Briton was unable to improve on his second hot lap after losing time in the middle sector.

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen split the two Silver Arrows and was 0.346 adrift of Hamilton’s benchmark and 0.016 seconds quicker than Valtteri Bottas.

The other Honda-powered Red Bull RB15 of Pierre Gasly clinched fourth and four tenths slower than team-mate Verstappen. With the two Ferrari SF90’s out of the picture, Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen took fifth on the grid with a 0.316 second gap over a tightly congested midfield.

Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean, who was running the season-opening Australian Grand Prix-spec version of his VF-19 racer qualified in sixth on the grid and starts alongside McLaren’s seventh-placed Carlos Sainz.

Racing Point’s major upgrade proved a positive boost as Mexican Sergio Perez took eighth and ahead of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg who was ninth quickest.

That left Leclerc 10th in the classification despite not running in the final qualifying stage, as the Ferrari driver at least ran without a problem in the first two segments.

The Mercedes pairing and Leclerc will all start on the C3 yellow-branded mediums after they used them to set their best efforts in Q2 – something Verstappen attempted to do on his first flyer before reporting of a power issue and abandoning his lap.

The other Alfa Romeo Racing C38 of Antonio Giovinazzi fell to 11th and was eliminated in Q2 in a frenzied ending to the session, lapping only 0.012 seconds slower than the aforementioned Perez.

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen, who was running the newly upgraded VF-19, was up against it after the Dane suffered a lock up at turn one on his final hot lap and was unable to improve on his initial run and wound up 12th fastest.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo could only manage 13th on his late effort with the Australian apologising to his team on the radio, with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat over three tenths behind in 14th.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll made it to Q2 for the first time in his 2019 campaign as the Canadian completed three-timed runs to do so, which meant he only had one set of fresh softs at his disposal.

Stroll was in contention to make Q3 as well, but the rear of his RP19 machine stepped out at the penultimate corner and failed to improve late in the second stage.

The second MCL34 of Lando Norris was the quickest of the eliminatees of Q1 in 16th place, with the young-Briton only 0.055 seconds slower than Kvyat after being nudged in the drop zone due to Giovinazzi’s late improvement.

Behind him was the furious Thai-Brit of Alexander Albon, who was hindered at the hairpin on his final flyer by friend Norris and was unable to improve in his Toro Rosso STR14 racer on his timed-run as a result, ending up 17th.

George Russell once again won in the battle of the two ROKiT Williams Racing FW42’s and lapped just over a tenth faster than team-mate Robert Kubica with the pairing taking 18th and 19th respectively thanks to Vettel’s failure to post a lap time.

The Top Three Qualifiers

Pole Position – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W10 EQ Power+: “I’m super happy to be on pole, it’s such a special race for all of us. The whole team is dressed up this weekend to celebrate 125 years of motorsport and our 200th race which is really cool. We’ve got Ola, our new CEO here from Daimler, so I hope that I can deliver on a weekend where everyone is here. It’s not just unfortunate what happened to Ferrari today, but unfortunate for the sport too because it was building up to be a really exciting qualifying session. I don’t know how close it would have been in the end, but they were quick all weekend. I was really happy with my first lap in Q3; I just lost a little bit of time in Turn 8. Position on the grid is really important here, so I’m grateful to be starting from pole and hopefully I can try to stay out in front tomorrow.”

2nd – Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB15: “The front row of the grid is a good achievement for us and Honda on this track. It’s been a good day and we definitely found a bit more performance overnight. This morning I was quite happy with the car and also in Q1. I had a little issue in Q2 with a mode setting and it was a shame not to qualify on the medium tyre but once we changed a setting in the pits everything was fine. Of course, we have to take into account that Ferrari had a problem with both cars and they would also have been fighting for pole, but you have to be there when it counts and we maximized everything to be on the front row. I’m on a different race strategy to Mercedes which is not exactly what we planned but we are in the fight and we will see how much difference the softer tyre makes at the start. We’re close and we have a good shot tomorrow as we have a good race car. At the moment we cannot judge how the weather will be but we will give it everything and a bit of rain could spice things up.”

3rd – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W10 EQ Power+: “It was not an easy qualifying session for me today, I struggled with the consistency in the braking zones in Turn 2, 6 and 8 – all of the heavy braking events. I just didn’t have a consistent feeling under braking, so I couldn’t really put a good lap together. It certainly wasn’t the best session, but starting from P3 tomorrow is not a disaster either. It’s a shame what happened to Ferrari, but I’m sure they will be quick tomorrow. There’s also a chance of rain for tomorrow which would certainly make things interesting. It’s still all to play for and I’m looking forward to the race.”

You can see the full starting grid for the Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz Grosser Preis Von Deutschland 2019 as well as the Qualifying Highlights at the links below:

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1010/germany/starting-grid.html