Despite threatening skies, the track remained dry throughout – with just spots of rain falling every now and then.
In the top-10 shootout, Hamilton immediately set a new track record of 1m13.613s, three tenths ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas, and then improved on his second run to 1m13.447s. Bottas also went quicker on his final run, but was a tenth off Hamilton’s best time.
Lance Stroll was best of the rest for Racing Point, 0.764s down on pole. Teammate Sergio Perez had his first run deleted for track limits, but his second run was good enough for fourth, a tenth and a bit behind Stroll.
Sebastian Vettel pipped Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc by 0.04s to lockout the third row of the grid, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen only seventh, ahead of the McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri made it through to Q3, but didn’t run due to a power unit problem.
In Qualifying 2, Hamilton topped the times with a lap of 1m14.261s using the medium tyre, 0.269s ahead of Bottas, with Verstappen seventh tenths down despite using the softs. Like Mercedes, the Racing Points also committed to the mediums, and were seventh and ninth fastest.
Knocked out at this point were Daniel Ricciardo (Renault), the highly impressive George Russell (Williams), Alex Albon (who blamed Red Bull for sending him out in traffic at the end of the session), Esteban Ocon (Renault) and Nicholas Latifi (Williams).
In Qualifying 1, Perez was fastest on 1m14.681s on a track that ramped up massively in terms of grip in the closing moments, lapping two tenths quicker than Stroll with Hamilton only in third.
Knocked out were Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Daniil Kvyat (AlphaTauri), Romain Grosjean (Haas) and the Alfa Romeos of Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen.
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