Hamilton, Mercedes earn another front row standing.
LE CASTELLET, France—June 22nd—Lewis Hamilton has dominated this year’s Formula 1 season, and his qualifying performance on Saturday afternoon was no exception. The Briton, who had a slow beginning to qualifying in the first two sessions, came alive in the final period to post a final 1:28:319 best time. He defeated teammate, Valtteri Bottas, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, to win the pole for Sunday’s French Grand Prix at Circuit Paul Ricard.
For Hamilton, it was his 60th pole for the Silver Arrows and the 63rd pole of his illustrious career. And, for Mercedes, it was the 63rd time of a front row lockout.
It wasn’t an easy proposition, though. “It’s a tricky track, with a lot of variables, and I kept chipping away, chipping away, and the last few laps, and the last one, I was down a half a second,” said Hamilton. “I am happy that I got the pole.”
For Hamilton, it was slow going at first. Bottas took the first two sessions, completing a time of 1:20:004 in the middle session. But Hamilton continued to find the pace at the very last second, posting the best time of the day–just seconds before the completion of the final session. Bottas could not find enough good laps to change grid positions.
Elsewhere, the American Haas F1 Team didn’t have luck on Saturday. Romain Grosjean was eliminated in the first session with teammate Kevin Magnussen exiting the second. Lance Stroll was another first session elimination, while Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez, Alexander Albon, and Kimi Raikkonen were names who joined Magnussen in not making it to the final session.
Red Bull Racing was never much into the top spots in qualifying, either, although both Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly did make it to the final session, finishing fourth and ninth, respectively. McLaren had their best double driver top 10 finish with Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr. placing fifth and sixth.
Sebastian Vettel continued with bad breaks, encountering a missed up-shift in his Ferrari, to go along with past problems this past week.
Hamilton gave credit to his team for assisting him with technical issues. “The wind had been picking up, and you have to be quite dynamic on how to attack the lap,” he declared. “But we had been working pretty hard and have done a good job. It was a great team effort.”
