Brendan Lines 13 Sept, 2020 08:00am

Lewis Hamilton has scored his 95th pole position in Formula One, his seventh of the 2020 F1 season and first at the Tuscan Grand Prix, teammate Valtteri Bottas missed out on pole by just 0.059s, securing P2 on the grid having aborted his final Q3 lap after a double yellow flag in the first sector, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start the race from P3.

Hamilton’s time on of 1:15.144s on
the Soft tyre sets a new record at Mugello, the Brit posted his fastest lap on his first run in Q3.

“I’m so happy to be up here. It’s been a tough weekend, to be honest. This is a phenomenal track and it’s very challenging,” Hamilton said.

“You’re going through Turns 6, 7, 8 and 9 at around 275 to 285 km/h and the g-forces we’re pulling through there is just insane.

“Valtteri has been quicker than me all through the weekend, so I’ve been working hard in the background to try and improve my lines and set-up. And finally, I got the lap together that I needed in Q3.

“The wind picked up a bit for the second lap, which is why I wasn’t able to go any quicker, but the first lap was good enough.

“Valtteri did a great job and has been pushing me really hard, so I’m glad I could pick up the pace once I got to Qualifying. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, it’ll be difficult on such a high-speed track but that should also make it pretty interesting.

It has been a recurring case for Bottas who had been fastest in every session, gaining the upper-hand only to have Hamilton snatch ascendancy back in a clutch moment.

“It’s disappointing to miss out on pole, especially by such a small margin and after I had to abort my final lap,” Bottas said.

“The yellow flags definitely hampered my Qualifying, as I still had more to come with the last lap and was just waiting for the time to get it all right.

“Coming into the weekend, we thought it would be nearly impossible to overtake here but during practice, we’ve seen how wide the track is and the different lines you can take through the corners.

“So, I’m hopeful I’ll be able to take the fight to Lewis tomorrow and have a good battle. There’s a long run to Turn 1 as well, so we’ll see what happens.

Red Bull lock-out the second row of the grid with Max Verstappen just two tenths adrift of Bottas, teammate Alex Albon put in a career best effort qualifying P4.

“As a Team I think we did a very good job the whole weekend and from the start the car was in a good window which meant it was more about fine tuning,” Verstappen said.

“We are the closest we have been to Mercedes in qualifying so we can be happy about that and also the gap to the competition behind us is bigger.

“I have good hopes for the race and it is always difficult to predict whether we can fight for the win but I feel a bit more confident than some other weekends.

“We have quite decent top speed which I think is good around here and although it won’t be easy to pass at least the last few corners are quite wide and long so you can take a few different lines if you have the pace to follow.

“Strategy wise as it is a new track we will find out a lot during the race, especially about the tyres as track temperatures are going to be quite high tomorrow. A Mercedes is never easy to overtake but we will give it all we have and I love this track so I’m really looking forward to the race.”

Charles Leclerc pulled off an astonishing result in P5, qualifying within a second of Hamilton with a time of 1:16.698s, a rare moment of celebration, just in time for the Scuderia’s 1000th Grand Prix start.

Sergio Perez heads up the Racing Point cars qualifying P6 despite not having the aero upgrades to his RP20, they went to teammate Lance Stroll who took P7 some four hundredths slower than Perez.

Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo will line up P8, the Aussie says he had the pace for a potential P5 having saved two sets of Softs from Q2, but teammate Esteban Ocon’s spin at Borgo San Lorenzo in Q3 thwarted any hopes of improvement for most of the field.

McLaren’s Carlos Sainz would have to settle for P9, sandwiched between the two Renaults.

The Tuscan Grand Prix begins 10:40pm tonight.