Hamilton takes 99th career pole in thrilling Imola session

Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position in a thrilling session at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, as Sergio Perez beat Max Verstappen to second.

Hamilton clocked provisional pole on the first Q3 push laps with a time of 1:14.411.

That proved the benchmark through the remainder of the session as neither he nor his rivals could eclipse that time.

McLaren’s Lando Norris initially caused a shock when he put his MCL35M on the front row of the grid but his time was swiftly deleted for exceeding track limits.

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Red Bull duly took second and third, with Perez in front of Verstappen, as the Dutchman compromised his last lap with a slight error through Tamburello.

In securing a front-row spot Perez took the best qualifying result of his career, just 0.037s behind Hamilton, with Verstappen only 0.052s down.

Perez is set to start on the Softs, as opposed to the Mediums for Hamilton and Verstappen, after using them for his best Q2 effort.

Charles Leclerc took a second-row berth for Ferrari, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, while Norris slipped to seventh, one spot behind Daniel Ricciardo, after his time was deleted.

While Hamilton took pole position it was a fraught Q3 for Valtteri Bottas.

Bottas made errors on both push laps in the session as he finished only eighth.

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll both out-qualified their respective world champion team-mates as they capped the top 10.

Early bath for Sainz, Williams shines

Just half a second covered the leading 11 drivers in a closely-fought second session but unfortunately for Carlos Sainz he was at the wrong end of the leaderboard.

It means he will start 11th on his first Ferrari outing on the team’s home soil.

Williams enjoyed its strongest display since Monza 2018 as both George Russell and Nicholas Latifi made it through to Q2.

Russell was 12th and within two-tenths of grabbing a Q3 berth, while Latifi took 14th, setting an identical time to Alpine’s Fernando Alonso to achieve his best qualifying result.

Alonso’s relatively low-key display marked the first time since 2017 that he was out-qualified by a team-mate in Formula 1.

Sebastian Vettel’s subdued start to his Aston Martin career continued as he was 13th.

Ferrari customers have early bath

Alfa Romeo flirted with the top 10 early in the weekend but couldn’t convert that speed into the business end of the weekend.

Kimi Raikkonen was 16th, with Antonio Giovinazzi 17th, as the C41s lacked pace around the Imola circuit.

Haas was once again slowest, as expected, though Mick Schumacher comfortably led the team’s charge and impressed by finishing within two-tenths of Giovinazzi.

His team-mate, Nikita Mazepin, was half a second adrift in 19th spot.

Tsunoda shunts in Q1

Yuki Tsunoda starred in Bahrain but if he is to repeat a points finish at Imola he must do so from the back of the 20-car grid.

Tsunoda took too much entry kerb at the Variante Alta on his first Q1 push lap and spun into the barriers on the exit of the corner.

The rear end of the AT02 sustained substantial damage in the impact, after a relatively innocuous mistake, and the session was halted while the car was retrieved.

Sunday’s 62-lap Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will begin at 15:00 local time

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