Hamilton takes record pole whilst Lance Stroll is at the front as well

Lewis Hamilton made history by securing the most poles in history, 69, beating Michael Schumacher’s record. Lewis Hamilton will start at the front of the race at Monza together with a surprising rookie, Lance Stroll due to penalties levied upon Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo.

Fifth fastest was Force India’s Esteban Ocon, ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. Williams’ Felipe Massa and McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne completed the top ten.

It rained extremely heavily at Monza causing Romain Grosjean to aquaplaned on the main straight which brought out the red flags. After a couple of hours, the conditions improved before the qualifying session resumed.

Hamilton and Bottas were fastest on wets with 1m 36.009s and 1m 36.582s. Vettel was third on inters, in 1m 37.198s. At the pits, Raikkonen had a bit of a drama when his brakes caught on fire and hit pit crew let him off into the path of one of the other cars which he almost crashed into.

Raikkonen had a bit of a drama with a brake fire and a near miss when his crew almost released him into the path of one of the Force Indias as the latter swept into its space immediately in front of the Ferrari pit.

 

 

A total of six drivers go into Monza qualifying carrying grid penalties, with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg and Jolyon Palmer the latest to join the list after taking on new power unit elements on their cars in Italy.

 

Here are the results of yesterday’s qualifying.

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	Q1	Q2	Q3	LAPS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:36.009	1:34.660	1:35.554	29
2	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:37.344	1:36.113	1:36.702	29
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:38.304	1:37.313	1:36.841	26
4	18	Lance Stroll	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:37.653	1:37.002	1:37.032	27
5	31	Esteban Ocon	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:38.775	1:37.580	1:37.719	29
6	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	1:35.716	1:35.396	1:37.833	29
7	7	Kimi Räikkönen	FERRARI	1:38.235	1:37.031	1:37.987	30
8	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	1:37.198	1:36.223	1:38.064	28
9	19	Felipe Massa	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:38.338	1:37.456	1:38.251	27
10	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	MCLAREN HONDA	1:38.767	1:37.471	1:39.157	25
11	11	Sergio Perez	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:38.511	1:37.582		19
12	27	Nico Hulkenberg	RENAULT	1:39.242	1:38.059		20
13	14	Fernando Alonso	MCLAREN HONDA	1:39.134	1:38.202		11
14	26	Daniil Kvyat	TORO ROSSO	1:39.183	1:38.245		21
15	55	Carlos Sainz	TORO ROSSO	1:39.788	1:38.526		21
16	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:40.489			12
17	30	Jolyon Palmer	RENAULT	1:40.646			10
18	9	Marcus Ericsson	SAUBER FERRARI	1:41.732			11
19	94	Pascal Wehrlein	SAUBER FERRARI	1:41.875			9
NC	8	Romain Grosjean	HAAS FERRARI	1:43.355			3