Lewis Hamilton secured pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix, leading the first Mercedes front-row lockout of the 2018 Formula 1 season.
Fifth in Q1 and fourth in Q2, Hamilton delivered a 1:16.491s benchmark at the start of Q3 to grab provisional pole. Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen all made mistakes on their first runs, leaving the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo second and third.
On the second run, Hamilton reduced his time to a 1m16.173s. This improvement meant that he was able to retain pole position, despite his rivals making significant improvements. Bottas qualified second, 0.040 seconds adrift of Hamilton.
Vettel ended the session third. He was 0.132s behind Hamilton. Raikkonen, who ran wide at Turn 1 on his first attempt and entered his final run provisionally seventh, ensured that Ferrari locked-out the second row by finishing fourth.
Both Ferrari’s used the soft compound tyre for the second and final run in Q3, with the delta between soft and supersoft proving to be insignificant.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo also used the soft tyre for the second part of Q3. He set a session-best time in sector three but did not manage to beat his team-mate’s lap. Max Verstappen ended up fifth, Ricciardo qualified sixth.
The top six will all start the race on the soft compound tyre having used it in Q2. Haas will also follow the same strategy, with Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean progressing through Q2 on soft rubber.
Magnussen qualified seventh. Grosjean was 10th in Q3, despite only being 0.2s adrift of his team-mate’s time. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Renault’s Carlos Sainz Jr split the two Haas’s, qualifying eighth and ninth respectively.
Alonso only narrowly progressed into the final part of qualifying. He was only 0.2s faster than team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne in Q2. Alonso’s late lap dropped Vandoorne into 11th place.
Pierre Gasly qualified 12th for Toro Rosso. His team-mate Brendon Hartley was not able to qualify as the team was unable to repair his car in time following his crash in FP3. Hartley will, however, be ready to compete in Sunday’s race.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was outqualified by his team-mate Sainz for the first time this year. A fuel pressure problem at the start of Q1 meant that he only had time for one hotlap at the end of the session. His time was only good enough for 16th.
Williams was the slowest team in qualifying, with Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll 18th and 19th. Stroll hit the wall at Turn 12 after a spin on his final lap of the session.
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