Brendan Lines 16th Aug, 2020 07:30am

Lewis Hamilton scored his 92nd pole at the Spanish Grand Prix, his fourth of the 2020 season, beating teammate Valtteri Bottas by just 0.059s, as Racing Point’s Sergio Perez was the feel good story in P4 for his F1 return behind Max Verstappen in P3.

Hamilton’s fifth pole at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya sees him move ahead of Ayrton Senna (4 poles) at the circuit.

“This is a great result for the team and I’m grateful for everyone continuing to push. It was very hot and quite gusty out there which made for a tricky session,” Hamilton said.

“We changed a few things overnight, made a good step forward and I was pretty happy with my first laps in each Qualifying session,

“The first Q3 lap was really solid but there was still a bit of room for improvement. But my second lap wasn’t particularly great and I just couldn’t go quicker. In the end, it was very close with Valtteri out there, he’s keeping me on my toes and every millisecond counts.”

“Tomorrow is going to be challenging, as the race scenario is completely different. Over a single lap, we seem to have the edge, but Red Bull’s race pace looks strong and the run down to Turn 1 is very long, so I’m expecting a tough battle.

The Red Bull of Max Verstappen has been hot on the heels of the Mercs all weekend, holding down P3 in every session.

Qualifying was the same for the Dutchman, but now Verstappen has closed the gap to Mercedes down to just six tenths of a second.

Sergio Perez heads the charge at Racing Point in P4 +0.20 ahead of teammate Lance Stroll in P5.

Perez, who was cleared for a return to F1 after testing negative to COVID-19, kept his cool in the heat of Q3.

“We had to be very careful preparing the tyres on the out lap, not pushing too hard because the track was so hot,” Perez said.

“It was also a physical challenge having missed the last two weekends,

“I’m very pleased that – once again – we’ve been able to show the strengths of the car in different conditions and on a different circuit.”

Red Bull’s Alex Albon took P6 just one-hundreth of a second ahead of Carlos Sainz’s McLaren in P7, on his home track, Sainz beat teamate Lando Norris who finished P8.

Norris pipped the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc by three-thousands of a second, the Monegasque would have to settle for P9.

Pierre Gasly continued his run of Q3 appearances to round out the top ten, knocking out Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who misses Q3 again this week.

The Spanish Grand Prix starts 10:40 ACST tonight.