Hamilton wins Italian GP pole as Ferrari falls flat on home ground
Lewis Hamilton has taken pole with the fastest ever lap in Formula 1 while home team Ferrari failed to make it into the top-10 shootout for the second week running at the Italian Grand Prix.
Hamilton took his 94th career pole by just 0.069s from teammate Valtteri Bottas. His time, a 1m18.887s, was a track record for Monza and the fastest lap recorded in F1 machinery, coming in at an average speed of 164.267mph.
Bottas lamented lacking the benefit of a slipstream on his Q3 laps but pinned his hopes on what he hopes will be better race pace than his teammate.
“It was pretty close, as I was expecting,” he said. “At the end I was on my own. It’s not too bad a place to be, but obviously you don’t get any gains in a straight line.
Carlos Sainz qualified a sensational third for McLaren. It was the Spaniard’s best-ever qualifying result, albeit 0.808s off the pace as the fastest non-Mercedes car.
“I’ve been feeling very strong since the start of qualifying,” he said. “I’m actually shaking a bit because …I had to really go for it.
