Hamilton scores German GP pole after Ferrari meltdown

Lewis Hamilton will start Sunday’s German Grand Prix from pole position after topping a dramatic qualifying session that saw both Ferrari cars hit trouble, leaving Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel way down the order.

On a weekend that Mercedes is celebrating 125 years in motorsport, Hamilton continued the team’s impressive Saturday record this year by taking his fifth pole of year, edging out Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the final stage of qualifying.

Hamilton won a Q3 fight that featured neither Ferrari driver after both Leclerc and Vettel were sidelined by separated issues.

For the second time in three races, Vettel was unable to post a time in Q1 after reporting a loss of power during his very first lap of the session. Ferrari instructed Vettel to return to the pits slowly so it could investigate the issue, but did not have time to resolve the problem and get him back out on-track.

With three minutes left on the clock, Vettel jumped out of his car without a time on the clock in qualifying, resigning him to last place on the grid on Sunday. Ferrari later confirmed the problem had been caused by an airflow issue to the turbo on his power unit.

This left Ferrari’s pole hopes resting with Leclerc entering the final stage of qualifying - only for a problem to emerge on his car as well relating to the fuel system. Leclerc banged his steering wheel in frustration before hopping out of the car with seven minutes still remaining in the session, leaving him down in P10.

The battle for pole therefore boiled down to Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas. Hamilton managed to put in an early benchmark of 1m11.767s that was three-tenths of a second up on both his rivals, with none of the trio improving on their final laps. As a result, Hamilton could celebrate his first Hockenheim pole since 2008, and the 87th of his F1 career.

Verstappen was able to pip Bottas to second place for Red Bull despite a Q2 scare when he reported a loss of power, while teammate Pierre Gasly slotted into fourth place on the grid despite losing his final lap time to track limits.

Kimi Raikkonen was the leading midfield driver in fifth for Alfa Romeo ahead of Romain Grosjean, whose switch back to Haas’ Australia-spec setup worked wonders as he took sixth.

Carlos Sainz grabbed seventh on the grid for McLaren ahead of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, with Nico Hulkenberg taking ninth in front of the stricken Leclerc.

Antonio Giovinazzi narrowly missed out on a place in Q3, finishing one-hundredth of a second shy of the top 10 for Alfa Romeo in P11, with Haas driver Kevin Magnussen following in P12.

Daniel Ricciardo also fell victim of a close-fought Q2 at Hockenheim, languishing down in 13th despite being just 0.650s off Hamilton’s fastest time. Daniil Kvyat was a further three-tenths of a second off the pace in P14, while Lance Stroll took 15th for Racing Point as he reached Q2 for the first time since last year’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Lando Norris suffered his first Q1 elimination of the season after failing to improve with his final lap, leaving him P16. The McLaren driver also appeared to impede Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon, who lagged down in P17 as a result of getting stuck behind Norris.

George Russell outqualified Williams teammate Robert Kubica for the 11th race in succession, taking P18 ahead of the Pole in 19th.

The German Grand Prix begins at 1310 BST on Sunday.