Hamilton will start ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen after the one-hour qualifying session, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.
In the first session, when all cars were on track together, Lance Stroll set the early pace for Aston Martin at 1m16.082s but an early red flag was required for Yuki Tsunoda, who piled his AlphaTauri backwards into the tyrewall at Variante Alta.
The session restarted with 12 minutes remaining on the clock, with 15 cars yet to set a time. Verstappen took over at the top with 1m15.109s but Bottas dipped into the 1m14s bracket with 1m14.926s and then 1m14.672s on his second push lap, with Hamilton making it a Merc 1-2.
Falling at the first hurdle were the Alfa Romeos of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi, and the Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin (who caused an angry Giovinazzi to abort his final run), along with the sidelined Tsuonda.
In Q2, the pole position-hunting protagonists ran on the medium tyre – as each car will start on the rubber used in this session. On the first runs, Hamilton set the benchmark at 1m14.817s, 0.067s quicker than Verstappen.
McLaren’s Lando Norris went straight for the softs, zooming straight to the top on 1m14.718s. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez ran on a second set of softs, producing 1m14.716s to end the session in P1.
Knocked out at this point were Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, whose scruffy final lap cost him a place in Q3, George Russell (Williams), Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), Nicholas Latifi (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine).
In the top-10 shootout, Hamilton set the bar at 1m14.411s, 0.091s ahead of Verstappen – who had a poor first sector but was fastest in the other two. Perez was third after his first run, a quarter of a second off the pace, with Bottas down in sixth – behind Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – after a big slide at the Tamburello chicane.
On the final runs, Hamilton just failed to improve, while Norris lit up the timing screens with a fantastic lap that put him second to Hamilton by 0.043s – but lost the time due to exceeding track limits.
Perez then went P2, 0.035s off pole, with Verstappen only third – 0.087s slower than the fastest time after he ran onto the grass exiting Tamburello. Leclerc took fourth, ahead of Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), the unlucky Norris, the surprisingly tardy Bottas (who was on pole here last year but said he couldn’t trust the rear end of his car this time), Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and Stroll.
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