BEVERLY HILLS, May 08, (THEWILL) – Mercedes AMG F1 Team race driver, Sir Lewis Hamilton, won the 100th pole position of his career after beating championship rival Max Verstappen of Red Bull racing team by only 0.036s at the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix qualifying.
After last weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix, Mercedes’ Hamilton and Red Bull’s Verstappen again lined up ahead of Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc of Scuderia Ferrari. In fifth was Esteban Ocon after helping Alpine secure their best qualifying performance of the season so far.
Sergio Perez, who is Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate, finished with a time of 1:17.701, after a spin in Q3, meaning the Mexican starts on eighth for the Spanish GP.
Sir Hamilton may have failed to improve on his own provisional pole time after running wide out of the chicane, yet none of Verstappen or Bottas found the time on their second runs to race past the Brit. That allowed Hamilton to take pole position for the imminent Spanish GP. It will be the 100th pole in his F1 career as a professional driver.
The British knight’s closest rival continues to be Red Bull’s Verstappen. The Belgian-Dutch driver will line up behind Hamilton on the front row, with Bottas in third. Following their time results, Charles Leclerc will line up fourth for Ferrari, with Alpine’s best starting position, in fifth for Esteban Ocon.
The others include Ferrari’s second driver Carlos Sainz Jnr in sixth, with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo in seventh, after he failed to reach the chequered flag in time to start his final run, while Sergio Perez, who could only manage eighth on the grid in the second Red Bull, will start in eighth position.
Lando Norris, in the second McLaren car, and Fernando Alonso, driving for Alpine, will follow in that order to round out the Top Ten for the Spanish GP.
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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
