#ImolaGP Qualifying: @LewisHamilton claims 99th-career pole position. #F1 #EmiliaRomagnaGP

Lewis Hamilton clinched his 99th-career pole position in qualifying at the Imola GP, ahead of Red Bull Racing pairing Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen.

 

 

Hamilton held onto P1 despite not making an improvement on his final flyer, with his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas qualifying down in eighth place, in-front of McLaren’s Lando Norris, who had his effort invalidated due to a track limits infringement, which would have put him third.

 

Both Mercedes drivers and Verstappen have the advantage of starting on the C3 mediums after progressing through the second qualifying stage on the yellow-marked rubber, which has better durability compared to the C4 softs.

 

Hamilton lead the way in the initial Q3 flyers with a 1:14.411, but was unable to recover the time lost on his final hot lap.

 

This saw the Briton not improve the pole benchmark, despite setting the quickest third sector time, but as his rivals could not improve enough, the Mercedes driver managed to hold on to take his first pole position of the 2021 campaign.

 

Perez out-qualified his Red Bull team-mate Verstappen for the first time, and wound up 0.035 seconds off Hamilton’s Imola GP pole benchmark. However, the Mexican had to use the C4 softer rubber to progress through Q2 and faces a difficult task in the opening stint if the Grand Prix starts in dry conditions tomorrow.

 

Verstappen was the favourite for pole position after topping the earlier FP3 session following his ruined Friday running and although the Dutchman posted a personal best on his final Q3 flyer – including the quickest time in sector two – he ended up 0.078 seconds adrift of Hamilton’s pole effort.

 

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc qualified in fourth place in-front of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, with the trio starting ahead of Norris who could have secured a shock top-three spot on the grid.

 

But Norris’s 1:14.454 was erased as he ran too wide exiting the Piratella corner in the second sector so his final effort ended up as his initial Q3 time.

 

This was still enough for the Briton to be ahead of Bottas, whose best personal best Q3 time saw him well off the typical Mercedes placings on the time-sheets.

 

Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll completed the top ten.

 

In Q2, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in his first Grand Prix in Italy for the Scuderia sees the Spaniard start in 11th place after a shock exit at the very end of the middle stage of qualifying, despite posting his personal best effort.

 

Sainz was unable to find improvement meaning Stroll squeezed through into Q3, with the two green-liveried AMR21 racer’s leading the rest of the field as Q2 drew to a close.

 

Williams Racing’s George Russell ended Q2 in 12th place, which sent Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel down to 13th and ensured the Briton kept his qualifying record against his team-mates intact – as Nicholas Latifi was 14th after an impressive showing in Q1.

 

Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso was another driver to post a personal best effort at the end of Q2, but was not enough for the double World Champion to go higher than 15th on the time-sheets.

 

In the first qualifying segment, Russell’s final lap improvement ensured both Williams FW43B racers progressed through to Q2 for the first time since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, which knocked out Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen – who was another that set a personal best on his final hot lap, but could not find enough gains to make it through into the second stage.

 

Behind the Finn, was his Alfa Romeo Racing team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi, with the Haas F1 Team pairing of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin saved from locking out the rear of the grid due to AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda who crashed out.

 

The Japanese driver’s Q1 ended just after a few minutes when he suffered a heavy shunt at Variante Alta on his initial flyer.

 

Tsunoda lost the rear of his Honda-powered AT02 racer between the two apexes of the chicane, with the car swinging around quickly and ending up backwards into the barriers.

 

The rear wing and both rear wheels smashed, with debris scattering over the run-off area, and the session was red flagged, followed by a ten minute stoppage as the incident was cleared.

 

You can read the full Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio Del Made In Italy Dell’emilia Romagna 2021 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1065/italy/qualifying.html

 

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Emilia Romagna GP Qualifying – The Top Three

 

Pole Position – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance+: 

“I didn’t expect to be ahead of two Red Bulls, they’ve been so quick this weekend. The car is feeling much better, I want to thank the team for their hard work. I love the challenge, having two Red Bulls will definitely make strategy harder.”

 

2nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“Well done to the team, most important is we are showing progress. I never expected to be here [in P2] today after yesterday. We should have been on pole today, I did a mistake on my final corner.”

 

3rd Place – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“Not so good in Q3, it was a bit messy, just not a good lap. You can’t be good all the time. P3 is a good starting position, we have the two cars on different tyres, we’ll have to make it difficult for them.”

 

 

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