Hamilton Takes 100th Career Pole In Spain

Calum Gill 15:25 08/05/2021

Lewis Hamilton took the 100th pole position of his career in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix, becoming the first driver to reach that milestone.

A time of 1:16.741 was enough to beat the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in second by 0.036 and his Mercedes teammate of Valtteri Bottas in third, a tenth and a quarter back from Briton Hamilton.

Charles Leclerc put in another impressive qualifying performance in the Ferrari, the Monegasque managing best of the rest in P4. Esteban Ocon put in another good lap to give him 5th on the grid, in front of the Ferrari of Spaniard Carlos Sainz in his home race.

Daniel Ricciardo outqualified his McLaren teammate Lando Norris for the third time this the season, Australian Ricciardo in 7th and Briton Norris in 9th. Sergio Perez split the McLarens in 8th, despite a spin for the Red Bull driver, and the second Spaniard on the grid Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 10.

-Full weekend results

Verstappen had looked the man to beat going into the final part of qualifying after he set a stunning lap in the second knock-out session. He was 0.5 secs clear of the Mercedes on his first run and did not bother going out for a second, and even so the Mercedes drivers could only get to within 0.2secs of him. But things turned around in the final part of the session and Hamilton pulled it out of the bag. 

The rest of the pack

Lance Stroll was the faster Aston Martin driver in 11th, team-mate Sebastian Vettel managing only 13th, 0.1secs behind. AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly split the Astons, in 12th, with his teammate Yuki Tsunoda not making it out of Q1 in 16th place. Antonio Giovinazzi was 14th in the Alfa-Romeo, ahead of George Russell, who continued his streak of getting out of Q1 at every race this year, with 15th place.

Along with Tsunoda, Kimi Raikkonen, Mick Schumacher, Nicholas Latifi & Nikita Mazepin all failed to make it out of Q1. Mazepin was also given a 3-place grid penalty and penalty license points for blocking Lando Norris.

2021 Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Classification