Barcelona Qualifying: Hamilton leads Mercedes front row lock-out

Hamilton's pole-winning lap time of 1:16.173 was a mere four-hundredths of a second up on Bottas and came with the reigning world champion's last flying lap effort in Q3. Earlier, after Q1 you, would have been brave to bet on such an outcome, but it all came good on his final run.

Afterwards, during the parc ferme interview, he said, "It's always a great atmosphere in Barcelona, there's loads of Brits and even Spanish fans supporting a Brit which is great. I needed this pole, I haven't had a pole for a while. It's a Mercedes one-two!"

Bottas added,"It was so close today like it has been all week. I ruined my first run in Q3 so I really only had one chance. It is a shame it is only four hundredths but it is good for the team. We will race hard tomorrow and try and get the one-two we deserved in Baku."

Ferrari looked up for it in the early half of the session, but when it mattered they lacked the firepower with Sebastian Vettel third fastest and Kimi Raikkonen fourth making for an all red second row on Sunday.

Vettel, who was a little over a tenth shy of Hamilton's pole-winning time, summed up, "I was happy with the lap, the first round in Q3 I locked into the first corner, but I was happy with the last lap, I was feeling good."

"I looked at the tower and I saw my name didn't go up... but we expected Mercedes to be strong so we will see what happens tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it and I hope people will enjoy the track and at home," added the Ferrari driver.

Raikkonen had little to say, "This is what we have got, so we'll see what happens tomorrow."

Row three will be an all blue affair with Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo fifth and sixth respectively - separated by two-thousandths of a second! - the pair seriously lacking a 'party mode' of sorts and were thus seventh tenths down on the top time.

Verstappen summed up, "We don't have that power mode, we lost more speed from the friction in the tyres - it's all a bit more painful for us, especially in Q3. It all gets a bit harder and together with my final lap I couldn't continue from turn one."

Ricciardo said, "I don't know what more I could have done. With the laps Max and I put in I thought we could have been a couple of 10ths from pole... but obviously they were quicker. I'll try tomorrow!"

Kevin Magnussen was 'Best of the Rest' in his Haas, albeit 1.5 seconds down on the pole-winning lap time with his teammate Romain Grosjean in tenth.

Eighth went to Fernando Alonso in the McLaren, the Spaniard happy with the updates to the car and predicting a day earlier that Q3 was possible. Mission accomplished!

Fellow Spaniard, Carlos Sainz was ninth fastest, the Renault driver outqualifying his teammate Nico Hulkenberg for the first time this season.

It was a miserable afternoon for Williams as both their cars were anchored to the foot of the timing screens throughout the session, and to adult insult to injury Lance Stroll spun out on his final run.

Rookie Sergey Sirotkin was 18th with Stroll 19th. Brendon Hartley did not partake as his Toro Rosso crew repaired his car after an FP3 crash.

In Q1, after the early pace was set by Räikkönen, Vettel then raised the bar considerably with a lap of 1:17.031 that put him four tenths of a second ahead of the Finn, with Hamilton third. Red Bulls drivers then disrupted things with Ricciardo jumping ahead of Hamilton and Verstappen recovering from an FP3 electrical problem to vault to P2 with a time of 1:17.411.

In the drop zone as the final runs began were Sauber’s Ericsson, William’s Stroll and Sirotkin, as well as Renault’s Hulkenberg and Toro Rosso’s Hartley.

After crashing heavily in FP3 Hartley and causing extensive damage to the rear of his Toro Rosso, Hartley was never going to figure in the session, but Hulkenberg, who had qualified in seventh place three times this season, was an unlikely candidate for the drop.

The German suffered with a fuel pressure issue early in the session but Renault managed to get their driver out for the final runs. His lap, though, was not stellar and in P14 after his run he was still in danger.

And the danger in the end came from McLaren’s Vandoorne whose final lap was good enough to push Hulkenberg out of the session in P16. Eliminated behind were Ericsson and Sirotkin.

Out, too, went Stroll whose session was ended both by poor performance and by a crash at the very end of the session. The Canadian lost control in Turn 13 and slid off into the gravel trap and out of the session ahead of Hartley.

In Q2 the frontrunners went out on soft tyres at the start of the session and Hamilton laid down what looked like a solid marker with a lap of 1:17.166. That was swiftly eclipsed by team-mate Bottas and then demolished by Vettel, who became the first man under 1m17s with a lap of 1:16.802. The lap put him 0.269 clear of team-mate Räikkönen.

Behind Mercedes and Ferrari, Verstappen looked secure in fifth but Ricciardo had not put in the perfect lap and as the final runs began Red Bull chose to send out again, on supersofts, as they did with Verstappen and as Mercedes did with Hamilton.

In the end, though, Ricciardo’s passage to Q3 was never in doubt as rivals behind failed to find the time necessary to dislodge him and the Australian was eventually told to back of in third sector to preserve his soft tyre lap as his quickest of the session. Thus, like the Ferraris and Mercedes and Verstappen, he will start on the soft tyres.

Out, though, went Vandoorne in 11th place with the Belgian finishing ahead of Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly, Force India’s Esteban Ocon, Sauber’s Charles Leclerc and the second Force India of Sergio Pérez.

In the first runs of Q3, it was Hamilton who set the pace with a time of 1:16.491, but while it might have been expected that Vettel would respond, the German’s opening time of the final segment was not good and his lap of 1:17.255, slower than his Q1 time, left him fifth.

Red Bull, meanwhile, found more pace and Verstappen set a time of 1:18.816 to sit just over three tenths behind Hamilton. Ricciardo took third with a time of 1:16.818 ahead of Bottas and Vettel.

An in the final runs Hamilton converted his advantage, setting a blistering pace to claim his 74th career pole position and his first since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.