Hamilton takes first pole in Spain, fourth of the season

Lewis Hamilton has secured his fourth pole position of the 2014 season and his first Spanish Grand Prix pole position after qualifying in first place for tomorrows’ race ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg. It is the second Mercedes one-two qualification of the season as Mercedes dominance of the new V6 era of Formula 1 racing continues into the European leg of the calendar.

Hamilton delivered a fastest lap time of 1:25.232, beating last years’ pole sitter and teammate Nico Rosberg with second place. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo will start from third after another strong performance for the team he is quickly finding himself very comfortable in.

Q1 started on time under the beautiful sunshine of Spain as Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez led out the pack of twenty drivers. The session was quickly red flagged with the 13 minutes remaining though when Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado crashed his car coming out of the exit at turn 3. Sitting awkwardly on the track with a broken nose cone and front right suspension, safety was put first allowing the marshals to recover the car.

After a stoppage of approximately 5 minutes, Q1 got back underway as Caterham, Mercedes and Williams were quick to send their cars back onto the track, followed then by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso on his home-soil. The red flag was shown when just four drivers had set times, leaving the rest of the pack just 13 minutes to set a time strong enough to see them through to Q2.

Towards the end of the session, with Rosberg and Hamilton at the front of the pack, Hamilton was heard telling the team they had ‘made the car worse’ this weekend, struggling with balance. It didn’t stop the Mercedes duo from topping the time sheets at the end of Q1 though. At the other end of the grid, those in the drop out zone included Adrian Sutil, Max Chilton, Jules Bianchi, Marcus Ericcson and Kamui Kobayashi as the session came to a close, making up positions 17 through 21 to start tomorrows’ Grand Prix. Pastor Maldonado will start from 22nd and last place after crashing and failing to set any qualification time.

There were just six tenths of a second between positions 3 through 17 at the end of Q1, leaving plenty of close racing to be done in Q2 in order to make it to the shoot out for the top ten. Sahara Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg set the pace for the second session at 1:27.863 before quickly being knocked down the time slots by Williams Racing and then the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. Shortly thereafter the Mercedes of Rosberg and Hamilton regained the top two spots on the time sheets with 7 minutes remaining in Q2.

Red Bull, looking stronger and faster this weekend after a disastrous start to the Spanish Grand Prix for Sebastian Vettel when he could not take part in FP2 with a wiring loom problem, sat provisional P3 and P4 for Ricciardo and Vettel as the clocked ticked down on Q2.
With just 3 minutes remaining on the second qualifying session of the afternoon, Kevin Magnussen was seen getting out of his McLaren, brining an early end to the afternoon. The team confirmed Magnussen’s car was struggling with a power unit failure and would make the necessary repairs before tomorrows’ race. Magnussen will start from P15 tomorrow.

Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne did not set a qualifying time in Q2 after he was handed a 10 place grid penalty in Fridays’ Free Practice when a wheel came off his car. As a result, Vergne will start from last on the grid tomorrow, whilst those eliminated from qualifying at Q1 will start from one place higher.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez were also eliminated from Q2 and will start P11 and P12 tomorrow, with Esteban Gutierrez and Daniil Kvyat in the row behind.

Lewis Hamilton was first on track in the final session, followed quickly by teammate Nico Rosberg as the in-team battle for pole position looked to commence once more. The Mercedes team had the track to themselves for their first laps as other teams opted to remain in the garage for a little longer. Their first flying laps of the final session were interfered with though when the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel stopped on track, bringing out yellow flags and causing the Mercedes to slow. Red flags were then brought out again to recover the car.

Red Bull quickly confirmed from the pit wall that Vettel had suffered from a mechanical fault, likely to be a problem with the gearbox.

The session started again shortly after the red flag was shown, and this time Nico Rosberg led Lewis Hamilton onto the track. Leaving just less than 8 minutes left in Q3, the remaining Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo quickly took to the track as did Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Rosberg quickly set the pace at 1:26.561 only to be topped immediately by Lewis Hamilton. Riccardo quickly slot into third place whilst Alonso sat fourth with 6 cars yet to set a flying lap time.

From there, little would change and whilst Rosberg was once again able to take fastest time late in the session, Lewis Hamilton would swoop in at the last second with a faster lap, securing him pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix whilst teammate Nico Rosberg will start second. Daniel Riccardo starts third for Red Bull whilst a delighted Williams Racing team will start from fourth with Valtteri Bottas.

Romain Grosjean, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Felippe Massa cover places five to nine on the grid for tomorrows’ Grand Prix, whilst Sebastian Vettel will start from 10th after failing to set a time in Q3.

The Formula 1 Gran Premio de Espana Pirelli 2014 will start tomorrow, May 11, at 14:00 local time.