QATAR GP – Lewis Hamilton beats rival Max Verstappen to pole by half a second
Lewis Hamilton has beaten his championship rival Max Verstappen by almost half a second to take pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix. The seven-time champion looked to have control throughout the evening topping all three parts of the session, while it looked tight in Q1 & Q2 Verstappen appeared to slip further behind.
Hamilton took pole with the largest margin in a dry qualifying this season, he will be looking to try and continue the momentum from his victory last weekend at Interlagos from tenth. both his runs in Q3 were quicker than Verstappen, that was despite Hamilton making mistakes on his first run.
Mercedes will be hoping that this throws the championship wide open going into the final two races in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas was over half a second off, and almost two tenths behind the dutchman in third. Bottas had looked to be the faster of the two Mercedes going into qualifying, he was expected to be close to Hamilton, but the team still have the upper hand over Red Bull after Sergio Perez was knocked out in Q2.
Hamilton said, “Yesterday was a really difficult day for me. Thursday and Friday, I wasn’t feeling too well – I had a bit of stomach ache. I was off [the pace] yesterday so really had to dig deep. I was here ’til midnight working late.”
“We found a lot of areas I could improve, made some changes for final practice and it seemed to work. You have to try and carry that through into qualifying. We didn’t have any traffic and that last lap was beautiful. This track is amazing to drive – all medium and fast corners.”
Verstappen said, “Just lacking a bit of pace. It has been just a bit more tricky for us again in qualifying. Checo [Perez] is not even in Q3, so you can see we are struggling a bit more than normal. [I’m] second, so it is all to play for, still.”
If the race finishes Hamilton first and Verstappen second, the gap in the championship would narrow to between six and eight points going into December’s doubleheader in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. The gap means Hamilton cannot afford a clash on track with Verstappen.
Overtaking is expected to be difficult around a track that is populated mainly by fast corners, so the battle for the lead down to Turn One and then pit-stop strategy will be critical.
In a week that has been dominated by off-track arguments and protests between Mercedes and Red Bull, the two title rivals chose to do the talking on track. Hamilton looking the more comfortable in the twilight conditions which will be the feature for the remainder of the season.
Red Bull’s deficit in the headline Q3 times of around half a second will raise alarm bells as Mercedes always seem to find more in qualifying at this type of circuit. Verstappen won’t have the help of teammate Perez who starts eleventh, Red Bull looking increasingly on the back foot.
Pierre Gasly put his AlphaTauri fourth, continuing his strong weekend going three-hundredths ahead of Fernando Alonso. Gasly hung on after bringing out the yellow flag at the end of his final attempt to improve, while Alonso equalised his best qualifying of the season.
The Frenchman went very wide at Turn Sixteen bouncing off the kerb which shattered his front wing that then punctured his left-front tyre bringing out the yellow flag. That stopped both Bottas and Verstappen from challenging Hamilton for pole, while Bottas was already looking unable to challenge, Verstappen had gone purple in sector one.
Lando Norris was sixth outqualifying his former teammate Carlos Sainz by four-hundredths of a second, as McLaren and Ferrari battle for third in the constructors. Both teams slightly on the backfoot for the race, with their respective teammates Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc were knocked out in Q2.
Yuki Tsunoda made it into Q3, but he was unable to find the same pace as Gasly, he was just over four-tenths ahead of Esteban Ocon and Sebastian Vettel rounding out the top ten.
Perez was the surprise casualty of Q2, the Red Bull driver was forced to switch to soft tyres at the end of the session. The Mexican abandoning the plan to get through on the mediums, but his soft tyre run didn’t see him improve by much and was then pushed out in the closing moments when Sainz improved.
Lance Stroll was twelfth going three thousandths faster than Leclerc, the Ferrari driver a bit puzzled for why he struggled for pace in Q2. Ricciardo was left asking the same question, the McLaren driver going over a tenth behind the Monacan in the battle between the sports two most successful teams.
George Russell made it through to Q2, but the Williams driver didn’t improve on his second run, finishing fifteenth a tenth and a half off Ricciardo.
Kimi Raikkonen spitted the two Williams being the fastest driver to be knocked out in Q1, going almost seven hundredths ahead of Nicolas Latifi, while his teammate Antonio Giovinazzi was eighteen. Mick Schumacher out-qualified his Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin by over four and a half tenths.