Valtteri Bottas snatched the pole position from four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel while his teammate Lewis Hamilton was eliminated in Q1 post a heavy crash.
After his dominant pace in the free practice yesterday, Hamilton was the favourite to get the pole. But unfortunately, the British driver had a heavy crash at the high-speed Ferradura right-hander during his first flying lap in Q1.
This is Hamilton’s first exit from Q1 since the 2016 Belgian GP. At the mid-corner Hamilton suddenly lost the rear of his car and crashed hard into the barriers. He emerged from the crash unassisted and was cleared by the race officials later.
With Hamilton gone, Bottas was left to handle both the Ferraris on his own. The Finn was the fastest in Q1, but in Q2 Vettel came on top. In Q3 again Bottas came in fastest and while Vettel didn’t improve his time in his second run, Bottas improved by 0.120s to claim the top spot clocking his best time at 1m08.322s.
Kimi Räikkönen was the third fastest, being just two-tenths behind Vettel and was followed by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Daniel Ricciardo came in fifth, but due to a 10 place grid penalty, he will start from further back.
Force India’s Sergio Perez claimed the sixth coming ahead of Fernando Alonso’s McLaren and the Renault duo Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz took 8th and 9th respectively. Hometown hero Felipe Massa came in 10th after nearly crashing out of Q3.
Force India’s other driver Esteban Ocon failed to qualify to Q3 for the first time after Singapore Grand Prix, losing the place to Sainz by less than a tenth.
Romain Grosjean lapped within the 1m09s mark and even got close to a Q3 place, but didn’t improve his timing, while others did better on their second run.
Brendon Hartley used his Q2 to get familiar with the start procedures instead of setting a laptime as he is taking a 10 place penalty.
Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly will face a 25 place penalty on Sunday and William’s Lance Stroll will get 5-places penalty. Hamilton will start at the 20th place tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s race will be a good chance for Bottas to claim a victory that could reduce his gap with Vettel for the second place in the driver’s championship.
