Hamilton blisters field for pole at inaugural Qatar GP; Verstappen P2, Bottas P3 while rest of grid jumbled by unpredictable results at Losail

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton gave his very best effort to keep his title hopes alive and the momentum going after last week’s win in Brazil by laying down an untouchably fast lap in Saturday Qualifying, seizing the pole position for tomorrow’s inaugural Qatar Grand Prix. With the entire field coming to grips with the first time use of the Losail International Circuit for a Formula 1 race, Hamilton proved to be the fastest learner in the bunch, setting a track record 1:20.827 time, some .455 seconds faster than his closest competitor, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. It was a fairly whopping advantage in Formula 1 terms that earned Ham the Man his first pole since way back in Round 11 at Hungary and sees him peaking at the right time as the season rushes to its conclusion. With only three races remaining in the 2021 campaign including tomorrow’s final leg of a grueling, multi-hemisphere triple header and Hamilton trailing Verstappen by 14 points in the Drivers’ standings, victory will be crucial for the legendary English pilot if he is to secure his unprecedented eighth world title and hold off the Dutch wunderkind who is more than a little hungry to score the first of his already impressive career.

While the second Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas did his part for the team by setting the third fastest time, thereby putting him in a position to harass Verstappen from behind and support Hamilton’s quest for victory in tomorrow’s race, the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez struggled mightily at Losail. Despite having raced here back in his GP2 days, Verstappen’s Mexican wingman was unceremoniously bounced out of Q2 with only the eleventh fastest time. While this will give Checo and the team some extra tires and strategic options, starting from P11 with a ton of competitive cars in front of them can hardly be what they were hoping for on the day. In fact, perhaps due to the unfamiliarity of the circuit, there were numerous unpredictable qualifying results up and down the field.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly gave his usual sterling effort and, even though his final flying lap was ruined by a blown tire via a front wing failure, the talented young Frenchman still kept the fourth fastest lap time when the checkers flew in Q3. (To make matters even more uncertain for tomorrow’s grid, Verstappen, Bottas and Sainz will have to see the stewards prior to the race for possible speeding under yellow flag violations when the double yellows were very briefly waved for Gasly’s tire incident.) Gasly’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who has been inconsistent in his rookie season to say the least, also made it to the third qualifying round and will start a solid P8.

The Alpines looked strong here, with wily old veteran Fernando Alonso notching a lap good enough for P5 on the grid and teammate Esteban Ocon persevering through some sort of break vibration issue to come home safely in P9. McLaren’s Lando Norris headed Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz P6 to P7. But their normally solid teammates failed to come to grips with the track and that saw Daniel Ricciardo set an uncompetitive fourteenth fastest lap while the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was only marginally better with a fairly shocking P13 starting spot. Well in front of that nonplussed duo and rounding out the top ten in qualifying was Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Qatari GP:

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN2 beginning at 9AM Eastern here in the States. Hamilton knows that time is running out on his record breaking championship aspirations but he looks to have the car to dominate, much as he did in Brazil, only here in Qatar he’ll be starting from the point rather than fighting back from a P10 start. He’ll be looking for help from Bottas to somehow take a position from and then hold up Verstappen, who is equally determined to hold P2 and limit any potential erosion of his slim lead in the points. Look forward to seeing you then to find out how it all shakes out!