» Hamilton smashes more records to claim pole

Any hopes that the gap to Mercedes-AMG would be closed by the tightening of the engine mapping regulations were well and truly dismissed in Saturday’s qualifying session for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

The reigning Constructors’ Championship winners continued their utterly dominant form over one-lap, claiming their seventh front-row lockout of the season at the end of an action-packed three-part qualifying session.

Lewis Hamilton once again found that extra edge when he needed it most, clocking the fastest every qualifying lap in F1 history to clinch pole ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas by just 0.069 seconds. The pair was equally matched over the first two sectors, but Hamilton just had the edge in the final run from the Ascari chicane to the finish line.

His final lap in Q3 averaged 164.267mph, shattering the two-year-old record held by Kimi Räikkönen of 163.785mph. Only Bottas could match him, while the gap to the rest of the field was simply eye-watering with the next best-placed driver being McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr who was over eight-tenths of a second adrift.

Such was the Mercedes team’s confidence, both drivers topped the Q1 session on the slower Medium compound rubber while everyone else had to resort to the less-durable Soft Pirelli tyres. On top of that, Mercedes eschewed the slipstreaming antics of their rival teams, repeatedly sending out their drivers at the front of the queue to create a potential tow for others to potentially benefit.

Their pace is simply ominous and suggests once again that Hamilton and Bottas will simply run away and hide in tomorrow’s 53-lap race. This is the first Grand Prix where the teams have been banned from using ‘qualifying mode’ settings on their power units – a feature that the Mercedes-powered runners particularly seemed to benefit from. Any attempts by the establishment to slow them down were met with a mere shrug.

For everyone else, the quest for a slipstream was a desperate and occasionally dangerous affair. With a tow potentially providing up to half-a-second in lap time, the FIA had put in even tougher limits to prevent the absolute farce that beset last year’s qualifying session.

That still didn’t stop a number of runners nearly tripping over each other in the final minutes of play in Q1, with Kimi Räikkönen particularly irked to find himself repeatedly blocked by Renault’s Esteban Ocon. Both drivers made it through to Q2, although their antics ruined the chances for Sebastian Vettel (P17 in his Ferrari) and George Russell (P19 in his Williams) from potentially capitalising.

Vettel’s poor pace epitomised Ferrari’s struggles, where the grip-poor and underpowered SF1000 was found wanting on a circuit where aerodynamic efficiency and horsepower reign supreme. Vettel’s teammate Charles Leclerc could manage no better than thirteenth in the sister car, and the prospect of even a points’ finish looks slim on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel, Scuderia Ferrari SF1000 - 2020 Italian Grand Prix

Ferrari’s shortcoming were starkly illustrated at their home track.

Further in front, Sergio Pérez put his Racing Point Mercedes fourth-fastest ahead of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing Honda. Lando Norris was sixth-fastest in the second McLaren, with Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Racing Point’s Lance Stroll completing the top eight.

Alexander Albon twice had his fast lap times deleted for exceeding track limits and made heavy weather of qualifying an eventual ninth-fastest after just scraping past the Q1 and Q2 hurdles thanks to mistakes from others. It was a messy session for the increasingly under pressure Anglto-Thai driver, whose failure to match teammate Verstappen is becoming more apparent by the weekend.

The AlphaTauri Hondas of Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat failed to live up to their Friday practice pace, qualifying tenth and eleventh fastest respectively ahead of Ocon’s Renault. Räikkönen was 14th for Alfa Romeo and Kevin Magnussen in 15th for Haas after an off-track moment in Q2.

Romain Grosjean was left to rue a deleted lap time in Q1 which cost him a shot at Q2 in his Haas, while Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi and the Williams pairing of Russell and Nicholas Latifi locked out the final three grid positions.

FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO HEINEKEN D’ITALIA 2020 – QUALIFYING
	Q3 Qualifiers	Team / Entry	Time	Gap
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG F1 Team W11	1:18.887
2.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes-AMG F1 Team W11	1:18.956	+ 0.069
3.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren F1 Team MCL35	1:19.695	+ 0.808
4.	Sergio Pérez	Racing Point F1 Team RP20	1:19.720	+ 0.833
5.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing RB16	1:19.795	+ 0.908
6.	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team MCL35	1:19.820	+ 0.933
7.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team R.S.20	1:19.864	+ 0.977
8.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point F1 Team RP20	1:20.049	+ 1.162
9.	Alexander Albon	Red Bull Racing RB16	1:20.090	+ 1.203
10.	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia AlfaTauri AT01	1:20.177	+ 1.290
	Q2 Qualifiers	Team / Entry	Time	Gap*
11.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia AlfaTauri AT01	1:20.169	+ 1.217
12.	Esteban Ocon	Renault F1 Team R.S.20	1:20.234	+ 1.282
13.	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari SF1000	1:20.273	+ 1.321
14.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo Racing C39	1:20.926	+ 1.974
15.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team VF-20	1:21.573	+ 2.621
	Q1 Qualifiers	Team / Entry	Time	Gap**
16.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team VF-20	1:21.139	+ 1.625
17.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF1000	1:21.151	+ 1.637
18.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing C39	1:21.206	+ 1.692
19.	George Russell	Williams Racing FW43	1:21.587	+ 2.073
20.	Nicholas Latifi	Williams Racing FW43	1:21.717	+ 2.203