Hamilton takes advantage of Ferrari mechanical woes to grab opportunistic pole in Hockenheim; Vertsappen bests Bottas for P2 on the grid
After looking like the fastest cars throughout the three practice sessions for the German Grand Prix Ferrari’s 2019 bad luck resurfaced once again in Saturday qualifying. First Sebastien Vettel’s Prancing Horse took ill with a turbo issue in front of his home fans before he could even set a flying lap in Q1. Then his talented young teammate Pierre Gasly’s mount suffered a fuel system issue that forced the Monegasque to end his Q3 pole effort before it really even began. Ferrari’s woes were all the invitation Mercedes Lewis Hamilton needed to take advantage and set the quickest lap of the day for pole for tomorrow’s GP. Even though the Silver Arrows could not match the Ferraris on pure pace during their reliability once again won the day when it counted. The fabled Scuderia from Maranello will have it all to do come race day with Leclerc starting from P10 and Vettel all the way in the back row. Weather may also play a part as rainy skies are forecast for Sunday.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen continued his excellent run in the rapidly improving RB15 and was able to best the second Merc of Valtteri Bottas for P2 on the grid alongside Hamilton. Verstappen’s teammate will start alongside the P3 Bottas in the second row after a solid P4 qualifying time. And veteran Kimi Raikkonen did yeoman’s work in his Alfa Romeo to hoist it all the way up P5 putting him in the ironic position of starting well in front of both the factory Ferraris, his former employer until this year.
Top 10 qualifiers for the German GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:12.852 | 1:12.149 | 1:11.767 | |
| 2 | 1:12.593 | 1:12.427 | 1:12.113 | |
| 3 | 1:13.075 | 1:12.424 | 1:12.129 | |
| 4 | 1:12.991 | 1:12.385 | 1:12.522 | |
| 5 | 1:13.066 | 1:12.519 | 1:12.538 | |
| 6 | 1:13.146 | 1:12.769 | 1:12.851 | |
| 7 | 1:13.221 | 1:12.632 | 1:12.897 | |
| 8 | 1:13.194 | 1:12.776 | 1:13.065 | |
| 9 | 1:13.186 | 1:12.766 | 1:13.126 | |
| 10 | 1:12.229 | 1:12.344 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live at 9AM Eastern on ESPN here in the States. Hope to see you then to see how it all shakes out!