Monza Qualifying: Raikkonen and Ferrari paint the town red

The oldest man on the grid made history by claiming the fastest ever lap in history at his team's most important race in front of the Maranello VIPs, his lap time of 1:19.119 came after receiving a near-perfect tow from his teammate Vettel who was a tenth shy of the top time.

The German thought he had taken pole:

Instead, it was a timely pole for 38-year-old Raikkonen whose future beyond this year is not yet confirmed and also made him the oldest man since Nigel Mansell, in 1994, to start the Italian Grand Prix from the top spot.

After his effort on the day, which included shattering the Monza lap record set by Juan Pablo Montoya 14 years ago, the veteran Finn said, "It's only half the job done. It’s a very special feeling to have pole here in our home Grand Prix, in front of the Tifosi. I couldn't think of a better place to be on pole!"

Vettel summed up his afternoon, "To be honest it was not a tidy lap, I think the other laps were actually better ones. I lost time pretty much everywhere. It was just not a good lap and not good enough. Lucky to get second and not third, but it's just not good enough."

"Clearly I wasn't happy but I don't tell you why," said Vettel cryptically, before adding, "We have an order that changes every weekend and this weekend it was Kimi's turn to go second."

Q3 was a thriller down to the very final lap, which happened to be Raikkonen after Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton dug deep and took the fight to the Reds and scaring them more than once during the session. In the end he had no answer for Raikkonen's special lap, but was a hundredth and a bit shy of Vettel - the stage is set...

The difference between Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas was apparent on the day as the Finn was thoroughly outperformed by his teammate all afternoon and although he ended fourth, there was over three-tenths of a second difference between the pair. It will be an all silver second row on Sunday.

Hamilton reflected afterwards,"It was a fantastic qualifying session. Congrats to Kimi. We knew they had the pace this weekend and it was going to take something special to catch them. It's generally been that gap all weekend. It was amazing how intense it was and that's how racing should be."

Max Verstappen was 1.5 seconds shy of the benchmark pace in his Red Bull on his way to fifth, while teammate Daniel Ricciardo who is facing penalties did a single run in Q1 before parking his car.

Best of the Rest was Romain Grosjean in the Haas, the Frenchman in fifth was a tenth up on Carlos Sainz in the Renault who will line-up sixth.

Grosjean's teammate also looked set for a strong showing but a bizarre tangle with Fernando Alonso' McLaren as they both started their final runs in Q2 messed up both their runs. They were summoned to the race stewards after qualifying. Magnussen was 11th and Alonso 13th.

Raikkonen set the early pace in Q1 with a time of 1:20.937, almost six tenths of a second clear of team-mate Vettel. The Ferraris were then split by Hamilton, who posted a time of 1:21.321.

Vettel though then moved to the front with a time of 1:20.758 and on a second attempt worked his way down to a time of 1:20.542 to head the session, in front of Räikkönen who also made an improvement and Hamilton.

Ricciardo, who is facing a series of PU-related penalties for tomorrow’s race, completed just a single late run in the session, but it was enough to see the Australian through to Q2 in fourth place ahead of Bottas and Verstappen.

At the other end of the order, in the drop zone as the session drew to a close were Stroll, Vandoorne, the twin Toro Rossos of Hartley and Gasly and Hulkenberg, who is also facing engine-related penalties tomorrow.

And it was the Renault driver who managed to drag himself furthest up the order with a time good enough for 10th. Gasly and Stroll also hauled themselves out of danger with the Toro Rosso driver finishing in P12, four-thousandths of a second ahead of the Williams man.

Perez was eliminated in P16 ahead of Leclerc, Hartley, the second Sauber of Ericsson and Vandoorne.

At the start of Q2 is was Hamilton who set the early pace, the Briton becoming the first man to dip into the 79 seconds zone with a lap of 1:19.798. Räikkönen slotted into P2, four tenths behind.

Vettel, though, was again running faster than both and the German drew a huge cheer from the partisan crowd when he jumped to the top of the order with a first run time of 1:19.785, edging Hamilton by just over a hundredth of a second.

Behind them, Bottas slotted into fourth ahead of Verstappen, Ocon, Renault’s Carlos Sainz, the Haas cars of Grosjean and Magnussen and of Gasly.

Vettel tightened his hold on top spot with his second run, this time lapping in 1:19.629 to make it into Q3 0.169s ahead of Hamilton, with Räikkönen third ahead of Verstappen who edged Bottas by just under a tenths of a second.

Lance Stroll put in a good lap to make it into Q3 in P8, the first time he had appeared in Q3 since the Italian GP of 2017.

Gasly, too, delivered an excellent final lap of the segment to make it through in P10.

That meant that eliminated in 11th place was Magnussen, with Sirtokin exiting in P12 ahead of Alonso. Hulkenberg and Ricciardo failed to set times and were eliminated in P4 and P15 respectively.

Vettel stranglehold on top spot ended in the first run of Q3 however. The German crossed the line in 1:19.497.

Räikkonen was right behind him on track, however, and he edged past the German by four-hundredths of a second. Hamilton though was running even faster and he claimed provisional pole with a time of 1:19.390.

There was no stopping Ferrari on home soil, however, though it wasn’t Vettel who made jumped to the top, but Räikkonen.

As Vettel dropped a wheel into the dirt on his lap, the Finn delivered a note-perfect performance on his final lap to shatter Juan Pablo Montoya’s absolute lap record for Monza of 1:19.525 set in 2004. Räikkönen’s pole, his first since Monaco 2017, was achieved with a lap of 1:19.199.

Vettel completed a Ferrari front-row lock-out with his final lap of 1:19.280 while Mercedes witll start from row two with Hamilton third ahead of Bottas.

Verstappen took fifth place for Red Bull Racing ahead of Grosjean, Sainz, Ocon, Gasly and Stroll.