Hamilton pips Bottas for pole at Monza and another Mercedes front row lockout; McLaren’s Sainz and Racing Point’s Perez qualify a surprising P3 and P4, relegating Red Bull’s Verstappen to third row
Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton’s dominant season continued when he was able to outpace his teammate Valtteri Bottas by a mere six one-hundredths of a second to grab pole for the Italian Grand Prix at the classic high speed Monza circuit during Saturday qualifying. Hamilton, who has now earned living legend status while remaining at the top of his game, extended his F1 pole record to 94, seemingly able to turn up the wick to fend off his hard charging Finnish teammate despite this being the first weekend of the FIA-mandated ban on “party modes” and other performance enhancing engine mapping tricks. Mercedes have now locked out the front row of all but one of the eight Grand Prix this season and the Silver Arrows continue to be on another level from the rest of the field with Hamilton essentially on his own planet at this point.
But, as predictable as the blistering pace of the Mercs was, the rest of quali managed to serve up several surprises. The superb Red Bull RB16 found the limits of its supreme downforce design when the ace pilot Max Vertsappen could set no better than the fifth fastest lap of the final session at this temple of outright speed. That opened the door for the Renault-powered McLaren of Carlos Sainz and the Mercedes-fired Racing Point of Sergio Perez to secure their places in the second row with fast laps good enough for P3 and P4 respectively, pushing Verstappen back into the foreign-for-him third row on the grid. Simply put, Sainz and Perez’s mounts simply had the legs on the Red Bull, at least for one-lap pace, and it wouldnt be totally surprising if one or both maintained that advantage in tomorrow’s race where over 60 percent of a racing lap is taken at full throttle. The second McLaren of Lando Norris will line up alongside Vertsappen after earning a P6 spot on the grid, while the factory Renault of Daniel Ricciardo qualified P7 and the second Racing Point of Lance Stroll set the eighth fastest time. Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Alexander Albon struggled all day with strict enforcement of track limits by the stewards and could muster only the ninth fastest time, while AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was the last the top ten starters.
Finally, Ferrari’s dismal 2020 continued in ignominious fashion when Charles Leclerc drove the wheels of his Prancing Horse in Q2 and still did not advance. He’ll have to settle for P13 on the grid. Meanwhile Sebastian Vettel got bounced in Q1 again after getting tangled up in a gaggle of other midfield runners all trying to inhabit the exact same space on the circuit for their final runs in the first session. It is actually a good thing there were no fans at Monza to witness this year’s Ferraris’ brutal lack of pace. One can be sure, however, that the corporate chieftains at the factory in Maranello just up the road from here were watching today’s woeful proceedings with a rather jaundiced eyes.
Top 10 qualifiers for then Italian GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:19.514 | 1:19.092 | 1:18.887 | |
| 2 | 1:19.786 | 1:18.952 | 1:18.956 | |
| 3 | 1:20.099 | 1:19.705 | 1:19.695 | |
| 4 | 1:20.048 | 1:19.718 | 1:19.720 | |
| 5 | 1:20.193 | 1:19.780 | 1:19.795 | |
| 6 | 1:20.344 | 1:19.962 | 1:19.820 | |
| 7 | 1:20.548 | 1:20.031 | 1:19.864 | |
| 8 | 1:20.400 | 1:19.924 | 1:20.049 | |
| 9 | 1:21.104 | 1:20.064 | 1:20.090 | |
| 10 | 1:20.145 | 1:19.909 | 1:20.177 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN beginning at 9AM Eastern here in the States. Can anyone stop Lewis Hamilton’s assault on the Formula 1 record book? I wouldn’t bet on it but hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!