Lewis Hamilton made a swift turnaround to seize pole position from his teammate Valtteri Bottas, with a brilliant final lap in an exciting Portuguese GP qualifying session on F1‘s debut at Portimao.
Should Hamilton go on to secure a 92nd F1 victory on Sunday, it would see him take the record for the most Grand Prix wins outright, two weeks after equalling Michael Schumacher’s long-standing milestone.
Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen were ahead of the record chasing champion mid-way through his final lap of Q3. However, he maintained an impressive run and was going quicker than both of them before hitting the front with a time of 1:16.652, one-tenth clear of the sister Mercedes.
“Cue one broken heart for Valtteri Bottas,” says Sky F1’s Martin Brundle after the Finn had topped all three practice sessions, Q2 and the first runs of the pole shootout.
“Every lap he’s been supreme, but when it matters most Lewis Hamilton has knitted it all together beautifully.”
Mercedes made a tyre switch in Q3 to the supposedly ‘slower’ medium tyres for the final laps of the session – and the move paid handsome dividends.
The world champions advantage grew on the medium tyres to secure yet another front-row lockout, ahead of Verstappen in his perennial third place in 2020, after they had previously held an advantage of just a tenth of a second over Verstappen when they all ran on the theoretically faster soft tyres in the first Q3 laps.
It was the 97th pole in Formula 1 for Hamilton, who also, perhaps, crucially made the decision to go for two timed laps on the final runs whereas Bottas went for one.
“I can’t tell you how hard that was today,” says Hamilton.
“Valtteri’s been so quick this weekend, he’s topped every session. So I’ve just been digging and digging and digging to find that extra time.”
Bottas admits: “I went for one lap [on mediums], it was my decision as it worked well in Q2. But it might be that doing the two timed laps like Lewis was better.”
Portuguese GP Qualifying result
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
2. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes
3. Max Verstappen, Red Bull
4. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
5. Sergio Perez, Racing Point
6. Alexander Albon, Red Bull
7. Carlos Sainz, McLaren
8. Lando Norris, McLaren
9. Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri
10. Daniel Ricciardo, Renault
Knocked out in Q2
11. Esteban Ocon, Renault
12. Lance Stroll, Racing Point
13. Daniil Kvyat, AlphaTauri
14. George Russell, Williams
15. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
Knocked out in Q1
16. Kimi Raikkonen, Alfa Romeo
17. Antonio Giovinazzi, Alfa Romeo
18. Romain Grosjean, Haas
19. Kevin Magnussen, Haas
20. Nicholas Latifi, Williams.
A true Champion