Hamilton beats Bottas to F1 Tuscan GP pole

Lewis Hamilton pipped Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Valtteri Bottas to claim pole position for the Tuscan Grand Prix.

Bottas had held the upper hand over Hamilton all weekend at Mugello after topping each of the three practice sessions, but Hamilton turned the tables on his teammate in qualifying.

The six-times world champion openly admitted he was struggled to get to grips with the Mugello Circuit on F1’s first ever visit to Tuscany, but Hamilton pulled out his best laps in qualifying to snatch pole by 0.059s with a 1m15.144s.

Hamilton was unable to improve on his initial effort during the final runs of Q3, while Bottas was hampered by yellow flags when Esteban Ocon dropped his Renault into the Turn 2 gravel, forcing the Finn to back out of his final flying lap. It is the seventh time in nine races so far this year that Hamilton has topped qualifying. 

Hamilton now has 95 career pole positions and 69 as a Mercedes driver as he looks to increase his championship lead with victory in Sunday’s race in his quest to equal Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of seven world titles.

Three-tenths back from the Mercedes drivers, Max Verstappen was third, ahead of Red Bull teammate Alex Albon, who scored his best qualifying result of the season to seal fourth.

On a weekend celebrating Ferrari’s 1000th GP, Charles Leclerc turned in a stunning lap to claim a much-improved fifth place on the grid for the struggling Italian outfit.

Sergio Perez outpaced Lance Stroll despite the Canadian running a heavily upgraded Racing Point at Mugello, however Perez will drop one place after being penalised for his tangle with Kimi Raikkonen in second practice.

Daniel Ricciardo will start eighth for Renault, ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and teammate Esteban Ocon, who failed to set a time in Q3 after his mistake.

Lando Norris failed to make it into Q3 for the first time this year after missing out on a spot in the top 10 shootout by just a tenth of a second.

The McLaren driver was faster than Daniil Kvyat, who was unable to improve after a big moment through Savelli in his AlphaTauri on his final flying lap of Q2 but the Russian was still able to grab 12th.

Raikkonen posted exactly the same lap time as Kvyat, with the Finn outqualifying his former Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo.

The Aston Martin-bound four-time world champion was once again unable to make it into Q3 and could only manage the 14th-fastest time ahead of Romain Grosjean’s Haas.

Following on from his heroics to win the Italian Grand Prix last time out, Pierre Gasly suffered a shock elimination in Q1 to record his worst qualifying result of the 2020 season.

The Frenchman wound up a disappointing 16th in his AlphaTauri, just ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi, who also failed to join his teammate in progressing from the first segment of qualifying.

Despite running wide and dipping his right-hand tyres onto the gravel on the exit of Turn 7, George Russell recovered from missing final practice with brake issues to uphold his 100 percent record of outqualifying his teammates in F1 to take 18th by a tenth from Nicholas Latifi.

The Williams pair both outpaced Kevin Magnussen, who for the second time in the last three races ended up as the slowest driver of all for Haas.

FULL QUALIFYING RESULTS FOR THE 2020 F1 TUSCAN GRAND PRIX.