F1 Paddock Notebook - Spanish GP Saturday

Recapping all of the news and notes from qualifying day for the Spanish Grand Prix, check out Crash.net's Paddock Notebook.

- Lewis Hamilton took the 74th pole position of his Formula 1 career on Saturday, extending his lead at the top of the all-time record list. Hamilton sits six clear of Michael Schumacher and is 21 ahead of Sebastian Vettel, the next-best active F1 driver.

- Hamilton headed up the first Mercedes front row lock-out of the season as teammate Valtteri Bottas qualified second. It was the first Silver Arrow front row since last year's season finale in Abu Dhabi.

- This will be the first race of the year that does not feature a Ferrari on the front row of the grid. Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen finished third and fourth respectively.

- Q3 saw drivers run a number of different tyre strategies. While Hamilton and Bottas took the front row on Supersofts, both Ferrari drivers, Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and the Haas pair of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen completed their fastest Q3 times on Soft tyres.

- All of the top 10 will start tomorrow's race on Softs except for Fernando Alonso, who made it through to Q3 on Supersofts. It marked both his and McLaren's first Q3 appearance of the season, having suffered elimination in Q2 at each of the previous four races.

- Brendon Hartley has been given permission to enter tomorrow's race after not featuring in qualifying following his FP3 crash. Hartley said he felt "sore" after the shunt, but was otherwise OK, calling the crash one of the biggest of his career. Hartley will start P20 tomorrow.

- Hartley will be joined on the back row of the grid by Sergey Sirotkin, who drops from 18th to 19th as a result of his grid penalty carried over from Baku.

- Marcus Ericsson faced two trips to the stewards today: once for allegedly overtaking under a red flag, and a second time for not staying to the left of the bollard at Turn 3. Both times he was cleared with no further action being taken.

- Max Verstappen also failed to follow the race note ruling regarding the bollard at Turn 3, only for Red Bull to argue that as he did not touch the speed bumps (instead weaving between them) he did not need to adhere to this. The stewards accepted this decision and updated the race notes accordingly.

- Former McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh was back in the paddock on Saturday, as was recent Williams driver Felipe Massa.

- Rain is forecast to threaten the lead-up to the start of tomorrow's race in Barcelona, with Apple's weather app expecting things to dry up in time for the race start at 2:10pm CET.