Monza Qualifying: Hamilton gives them a hammering

Lewis Hamilton delivered a magic lap at the Temple of Speed to claim pole position, for the Italian Grand Prix, by nearly half a second - it will be remembered as one of the most dominant qualifying performances of his career - and with it setting himself up for a 50th grand prix win on Sunday.

It was Hamilton's fifth career top spot start at Monza, equaling Jean Manuel Fangio and Ayrton Senna's record of five pole position starts at the historic venue.

Hamilton said afterwards, "I feel very proud and honoured to be up amongst Fangio and Senna, incredible drivers and I never thought in a million years my name would be mentioned in the same breath as them."

"I came with my A-game today particularly that last lap felt incredible. It’s a great track with great fans. Race by race I continue to say that this team is fantastic, and it’s a pleasure to drive for them," added the world championship leader.

Hamilton's lap time of 1:21.135 was set on his final run in Q3 and ended up being 0.478 of a second up on Rosberg's best effort.

The German had no excuses for the unusually large margin between the two, "He did some good laps and that was it. I was just not quick enough."

In retrospect the achievement came as no surprise as the reigning Formula 1 world champion has enjoyed a healthy edge at Monza since FP2 on Friday.

Ferrari's updated power unit made them best of the rest, but the Reds were nearly a second off the pace of the dominant Silver Arrows. Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikonen, watched by bog boss Sergio Marchionne, were third and fourth respectively on the final time sheets.

Vettel summed up his afternoon, "First of all I wasn’t too happy with my first run, and then I went just on the limit in the last corner and was a little late on the throttle on my second lap."

"But the lap itself I brought it back in sector two and three and did well. I’m very happy for us to lock out the second row, although I’m not entirely happy as those guys ahead look like they’re in a world of their own," added the Ferrari driver.

Williams driver Valtteri Bottas upset the form book by qualifying fifth, getting the better of the Red Bull duo who simply did not have the top end required to be at the sharp end of proceedings at Monza.

Daniel Ricciardo was sixth fastest, fractionally faster than teammate Max Verstappen in seventh.

The first casualty of Q1 was Manor’s Esteban Ocon. With eight minutes gone in Q1, the Frenchman, who made his race debut at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, suffered a technical problem that forced him to pull over at Turn 1. He exited the session without setting a lap time.

At the front, Hamilton set the early pace; recording a time of 1:21.854, well over half a second clear of Rosberg, with Vettel third ahead of Ricciardo. Vettel and fifth-placed team-mate Kimi Raikkonen set their best times on the session on soft tyres.

As the clock wound down on the session that order remained static, but at the back things were more fluid, with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, McLaren Fernando Alonso; Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Magnussen, the second of Marcus Ericsson; in the drop zone ahead of the unfortunate Ocon.

Only Alonso made it out of that group with the Spaniard posting a time of 1:23.783, just four hundredths of a second clear of Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat who was first to be eliminated in P17. Behind him were Nasr, Ericsson, Palmer, Magnussen and Ocon.

At the start of Q2 both the Mercedes and Ferrari pairings went out on soft compound Pirelli tyres. Rosberg set the first time of the session with a lap of 1:21.809 but he was quickly eclipsed by Hamilton, who went 0.311s better to claim provisional top spot. Rosberg slotted into P2 ahead of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, all cars powered by Mercedes engines.

Both Ferrari drivers swiftly moved supersoft tyres and Vettel jumped up to P3 with a time of 1:22.275, 0.777s adrift of Hamilton’s soft tyre time. Raikkonen took P5 behind Bottas with Massa in sixth ahead of Esteban Gutierrez and Perez. In ninth and tenth places after the initial runs were Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, both having set their times on soft tyres.

The Red Bull pair bolted on supersofts for their final runs in the segment, however and Verstappen jumped to P6 to ensure passage to Q3. Ricciardo went quicker to claim the same spot as Verstappen dropped to eighth behind Esteban Gutierrez who have Haas something to cheer about by handing the team it’s first Q3 berth. It was also the Mexican’s first Q3 since the Korean Grand Prix of 2013.

Behind Verstappen, the final two Q3 places were taken by the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg. Out at this stage from P11 back went Massa, Romain Grosjean in the second Haas, Alonso, Wehrlein, the second McLaren of Jenson Button and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz.

In the first runs of Q3 Rosberg was first across the line but his time was slower than his Q2 best and Hamilton quickly demoted his team-mate to P2 with an opening lap of 1:21.358, 0.140s faster than his own Q2 best. Raikkonen slotted in to third, seven tenths adrift of Hamilton with Vettel fourth ahead of Bottas, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Hulkenberg, Perez and Gutierrez.

And there was no significant improvement by Rosberg in the final runs. The German made a marginal gain but Hamilton once again appeared to effortlessly carve a chunk out of his own personal best time to take his seventh pole position of his career and his 56th overall.

Ferrari will line up for its home race in P3 and P4, with Vettel beating team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to the forward slot of row two by just under a tenth of a second. Valtteri Bottas gave Williams hope of a good points with fifth place ahead of the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Verstappen, with the Force Indias of Perez and Hulkenberg set to line up on row five.