Hamilton claims dominant Russian GP pole after big Q2 scare

Lewis Hamilton flew to his eighth pole from 10 races in the 2020 Formula 1 season at the Russian Grand Prix, despite only just making it out of Q2.

The world championship leader – who can equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 F1 wins tomorrow – still faced a potential post-session headache with a stewards’ summons for not respecting the rules on rejoining at Turn 2 after a Q1 moment but no action was taken over the incident.

Friday practice and Q1 pacesetter Valtteri Bottas does not even join team-mate Lewis Hamilton on the front row as Max Verstappen managed to split the Mercedes.

Hamilton had laps deleted for infringing track limits in both Q1 and Q2. The Q1 incident that he has been summoned for is separate to those deletions.

Losing the lap didn’t matter for Hamilton in the first segment, when he breezed to second behind Bottas with a later run, but it led to a huge scare in Q2 that could’ve easily left him 15th on the grid.

Q2 was red-flagged with 2m15s to go due to Sebastian Vettel losing his Ferrari on acceleration through the Turn 4 right-hander and having a heavy impact with the barrier.

At that point Hamilton was mid-way through a flying lap, and he ended up only eighth in the queue of cars at the pitlane exit for the sprint to get a time in when the session restarted.

Losing it under braking into Turn 2 and shooting over the run-off didn’t help Hamilton’s chances, but he made it across the line with literally one second to spare before the chequered flag and put a lap in that put him fourth.

He had to switch to soft tyres to do so, while Bottas made it through Q2 on mediums so carries a potential strategic advantage into the race.

But Bottas left himself firmly on the backfoot with two disappointing Q3 laps. The first put left him nearly eight tenths of a second behind Hamilton’s provisional pole, and he only narrowly closed that gap at the second attempt.

Worse still for Bottas, Hamilton improved to a 1m31.304s – 0.652s faster than his team-mate – to cement his pole with his second lap, and Verstappen then beat Bottas by a tenth of a second to get between them.

Verstappen can also start the race on mediums. He went out on softs at the end of Q2 as his seventh-place at that point appeared vulnerable, but backed off when it was clear he was safe so his time on mediums stood.

Sergio Perez put his Racing Point fourth on the grid, while his team-mate Lance Stroll was left down in 13th as a mechanical problem meant he had to be pulled out of the pitlane queue after the Q2 red flag.

The Renaults and McLarens fill rows three and four – Q2 pacesetter Daniel Ricciardo leading Carlos Sainz Jr, Esteban Ocon and Lando Norris.

Red Bull’s Alex Albon had another very disappointing session. He only just made it out of Q2 in the post-red flag scramble, then ended up behind Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri in 10th on the grid.

Both Ferraris were eliminated in Q2, with Charles Leclerc just missing out in 11th place and Vettel left 15th on the time set before his crash. Leclerc shares row six with home favourite Daniil Kvyat.

George Russell starred in qualifying again by getting his Williams into Q2 for the sixth time this season, putting in a Q1 lap over a second faster than 19th-placed team-mate Nicholas Latifi. Russell went on to qualify 14th.

Kimi Raikkonen is set to equal Rubens Barrichello’s record of 322 grand prix starts in tomorrow’s race, but he’ll do so from last on the grid after spinning at Turn 2 late in Q1.

His Alfa Romeo team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi continued his run of Q1 exits in 17th between the Haases of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen.

Qualifying Results