Lewis Hamilton equals Michael Schumacher’s F1 record with pole position for Belgian GP

Lewis Hamilton equalled Michael Schumacher’s career record of 68 poles by qualifying fastest for the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix. It is Hamilton’s 200th Grand Prix start, 43 fewer than Schumacher took to reach that mark.

His fourth pole at Spa-Francorchamps also puts him equal with Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in the Belgian GP record-books.

“It is [special]. I have to say a big thank you and I pray for Michael and his family all the time. I had the privilege of racing with him in Kerpen and on the track and I’m honoured to be up there with Michael up there in the poles.

“He will always be the greatest of all time,” said Hamilton.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel lines up alongside his rival, 0.242 seconds off Hamilton’s time of 1m42.553s. He paid tribute to his team mate Kimi Raikkonen, who had decided to abort his final lap in Q3 but, spotting Vettel coming up behind him in the final sector, gave him a tow worth 2/10ths of a second. It was enough to make the difference for Vettel, who had just signed a new contract keeping him at Ferrari until the end of 2020.

Raikkonen, who had been the pace setter in the final practice session, qualified fourth, behind Valtteri Bottas: no driver has ever won a race at Spa from fourth on the grid. Red Bull placed its cars in fifth and sixth, with Daniel Ricciardo experiencing, for the first time in his career, a team mate outqualifying him eight times in a season.

Q1

Hamilton began Q1 on the super-soft tyre, as did team-mate Bottas and the Ferrari pair. A time of 1m44.184s, set by Hamilton, was enough to top Q1, 0.091s ahead of Vettel.

On ultra-softs, Max Verstappen finished third, 0.351s off the pace, ahead of Raikkonen in fourth while Bottas rounded out the top five.

Esteban Ocon finished seventh in the slick Force India which looked steady in the high-speed first sector. Tellingly, Ocon set the fastest sector one time while team-mate Sergio Perez (13th) set the fastest sector three time.

Nico Hulkenberg finished eighth in his Renault ahead of Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz Jr while homecoming Stoffel Vandoorne rounded out the top 10 for McLaren, 1.257s off the pace and two tenths faster than team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Renault counterpart Jolyon Palmer continued his improving pace with an 11th place finish in Q1 in a car which boss Cyril Abiteboul claimed is now the ‘fourth fastest’ in the field.

The Williams duo were both eliminated with Lance Stroll losing considerable time in sector one, around eight-tenths to Force India’s Ocon. Team-mate Felipe Massa missed out by 0.095s in 16th place. Stroll set just one flying lap in Q1, citing a broken wing end-plate as the reason.

Also eliminated was Daniil Kvyat who split the two Williams in 17th and the two Saubers led by Marcus Ericsson with 3.495s separating the top 20.

Q2

Now on the ultra-soft tyre, Lewis Hamilton set a 1m43.539s to lead the session, 0.161s ahead of runner-up Raikkonen.

Hamilton found a huge chunk of time on his final effort to set a 1m42.927s, with Bottas improving to finish second, 0.322s off his counterpart to push down Raikkonen to third.

Starting the race on ultra-softs, Mercedes and Ferrari have implied a two-stop race strategy beckons on Sunday.

Verstappen and Vettel rounded out the top five in fourth and fifth, respectively with 1.060s splitting Vettel and Hamilton. Ricciardo once again placed sixth.

Palmer pipped the two Force Indias to reach seventh in his third top 10 appearance of the year and second in a row. Palmer beat Perez by two tenths and outperformed team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who finished ninth in Q2, ahead of Ocon in 10th.

Eliminated by 0.085s was McLaren’s Alonso in 11th, who duly complained of a loss of power during his final flying lap. Efforts to slipstream Vandoorne in the flat-out first sector, in an admirable display of team-work, were deemed fruitless as a result.

The Haas duo were eliminated also, led by Romain Grosjean in 12th, while Vandoorne finished 15th behind Toro Rosso’s Sainz.

A 65-place grid penalty awaits McLaren racer Vandoorne on Sunday.

Q3

Hamilton came out swinging to equal Schumacher’s record of 68 poles, with a lap record of 1m42.907s as Raikkonen trailed by 0.363s early on.

The Briton improved to a 1m42.094s with his final effort, but Vettel also improved greatly by using Raikkonen’s slipstream to book a place on the front-row to qualify second, 0.242s off the pace. This was at the expense of Bottas, who settled for third ahead of Raikkonen, and to deny Mercedes a one-two.

The Red Bull qualifying battle is now being led 8-4 by Verstappen, who out-qualified Ricciardo by nearly half a second as the pair of Red Bulls took fifth and sixth on the grid.

Renault’s Palmer lost gearbox oil pressure early on in Q3 as his car billowed smoke early on in the session and he ended up a disappointing 10th, after showing the pace to out-qualify Hulkenberg throughout.

As a result, Hulkenberg took seventh ahead of the Force Indias to echo Abiteboul’s earlier remarks, led by Perez who beat his team-mate by 0.125s.

After Hamilton’s return to the pitlane, Ross Brawn said: “I’m here to deliver a very special message from the Schumacher family, who want to congratulate you on equalling Michael’s record.

“As [Michael] always said, records are there to be broken. So they want to say a special congratulations,” said Brawn.

Have your say on Hamilton’s record-equalling performance in the comment section below.

Provisional starting grid, 2017 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix: 

Source :https://www.jamesallenonf1.com

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