Hamilton back in pole for Italian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton will start the Italian Grand Prix at the front of the grid tomorrow, qualifying in pole position ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg.

Setting a timed lap of 1:24.109 early in the final qualifying session of the afternoon, Rosberg was unable to compete with Hamilton’s speed and despite a last minute run in attempt to score pole position, Rosberg had to settle for P2 whilst 0.274 seconds back on his teammate.
Williams Racing, powered by Mercedes, have their driver pairing of Bottas and Massa started from third and fourth tomorrow having been able to almost match the pace of the Mercedes AMG team this weekend.

Q1 got underway with the Marussia dup of Bianchi and Chilton leading the pack out, followed directly by the Caterham of Kamui Kobayashi. Kobayashi is back in the car for the first time since racing before the summer break after giving up his seat to André Lotterer for the race two weekends ago at Spa. The Marussia’s quickly ducked back into their pit garages, leaving Kobayashi to post the first fastest lap of qualifying.

Shortly thereafter the track got busier with some of the key players taking to the circuit to get an early fast lap in. Kobayashi’s time was quickly bumped down the grid as the lap times started to fall. Mercedes and Williams drivers quickly put themselves in the top four positions, leaving the remaining time slots to be fought over by the rest of the grid.

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean was the last car to put a fast lap into the first qualifying session; a fluid leak left the team scrambling to fix the car right up to the dying minutes of Q1. His first attempt at a fast lap put him 19th though, slower than the Marussia of Jules Bianchi. Making the start/finish line in time for a second fast lap, Grosjean got one last attempt at reaching Q2 for Lotus. Grosjean’s second run was marginally quicker, but ultimately not good enough to see him out of the dropout zone. Teammate Pastor Maldonado also did not make it out of the dropout zone, suffering from a gearbox problem. The Lotus teammates will line up next to each other in 17th and 18th place for tomorrows race.

Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi will start from 19th after a late surge to put himself ahead of the Marussia’s of Bianchi and Chilton whilst Marcus Ericsson will once again start from the back of the grid.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg got Q2 underway running on the Medium compound Pirelli tire, setting a slow timed lap easily beatable by those around him. The lap prove to be a warmup lap though, with his second fast lap putting him will in the mix. Again, as soon as the Williams and Mercedes cars took to the track the top 4 positions were taken, leaving fifth onwards to be fought over. Alonso and Ferrari looked comfortable in fifth for much of the session whilst teammate Kimi Raikkonen looked to be fighting with the car as he struggled to keep within the top ten.

As Q2 came to an end, the McLaren of Kevin Magnussen moved into the top ten at the last minute, knocking team hometown favorite Kimi Raikkonen into the dropout zone. Danill Kvyat also managed a lap time quicker than the Ferrari meaning Kvyat will start from P11 tomorrow with Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari just behind in twelfth. Jean-Eric Vergne qualified 13th whilst an under-par performance from Nico Hulkenberg puts the German in 14th. 15th and 16th belong to the struggling Sauber’s of Sutil and Gutierrez.

Once again it was a Force India who got things started for Q3, this time that of Sergio Perez having lost teammate Nico Hulkenberg in Q2. Perez got one lap in before both Mercedes were sent out; Rosberg using a new set of the medium compound tyre. Rosberg’s first timed lap put him at the top of the time sheets before Hamilton took provisional pole just seconds later.

Hamilton’s first fast lap was 0.4 seconds faster than Rosberg, leaving the German with a challenge to get to pole in the latter half of the session. With Hamilton and Rosberg occupying provisional pole and P2, the Williams’ of Bottas and Massa held consistent in P3 and P4. Rosberg and Hamilton came out again for one last fast lap with just one minute to go as did the Williams’ cars. Rosberg’s final lap was not fast enough to move ahead of Hamilton though, leaving him in seconds place whilst Massa remained fourth just behind teammate Valtteri Bottas in third.

Kevin Magnussen is ‘best of the rest’ qualifying fifth fastest ahead of teammate Jenson Button, whilst Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso will start P7 for the Maranello outfits home race tomorrow. Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez complete the top ten on the grid.

The Formula 1 Gran Premio D’Italia 2014 starts tomorrow, Sunday September 7th, at 14:00 local time.