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(Reuters) – Six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton broke the Monza track record on Saturday to take pole position at the Italian Grand Prix for the fastest lap in Formula One history.
As Mercedes soared, Ferrari sank into further humiliation with neither of its cars starting their home run in the top 10 for the first time since 1984.
Hamilton’s lap was simply sensational, a prodigious minute 18,887 seconds at an average speed of 264,362 km / h (164 mph) to lead Finnish teammate Valtteri Bottas into another front row lock.
It was the 94th pole of Hamilton’s stellar race, and the seventh on the ‘Magic Track’, and shattered the idea that a crackdown on the so-called ‘party modes’ of the engine would affect his team’s performance.
“No party. No problem,” the team said on its official Twitter account.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, who will join Ferrari next year, polished his credentials with an impressive third place on the grid on a sunny afternoon, with Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez fourth in his ‘pink Mercedes’.
Hamilton’s closest rival in the championship, Max Verstappen, 47 points after seven races, qualified for Red Bull in fifth place.
Another victory for Hamilton on Sunday would be the sixth in eight races and the 90th in his career, a distance from the all-time record of former Ferrari great Michael Schumacher.
There will be no crowd in the most passionate and atmospheric venue on Sunday, due to COVID-19 restrictions, which can be so good for Ferrari as they endure their worst season in decades.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel will line up 13th and 17th respectively.
“(It was) the best I can do,” Leclerc said over team radio.
Vettel, in his last Italian Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver with his future uncertain, found himself caught in a messy first phase with drivers vying for position in an attempt to slide and win an aerodynamic trailer.
“What a mess!” Exclaimed the four-time world champion, who achieved his first F1 victory at Monza with Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) in 2008.
Hamilton was fastest in the opening session before breaking the track record with a lap of 1: 19.092 in the second, only for Bottas to produce an effort of 1: 18.952.
The Finn couldn’t improve on that time in the surprisingly chaos-free finals, his best result was 1: 18.956, but Hamilton could and did to beat him at 0.069.
The previous track record, and the fastest lap ever, of 1: 19.119 (at an average of 263.587 km / h) was set by Kimi Raikkonen on his way to pole position for Ferrari in 2018.
“A fantastic performance from the team today and I think just in terms of time, when they put us on track. It really demanded a clean lap and I think I got it on both.
“Valtteri was very close, pushing. I made some big changes before qualifying, so I was a bit nervous to think it was the right thing to do, but it worked well.”
Lando Norris qualified sixth for McLaren with Daniel Ricciardo seventh for Renault and Canadian Lance Stroll eighth for Racing Point.
Thai driver Alex Albon and Frenchman Pierre Gasly completed the top 10 for Red Bull and AlphaTauri respectively.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, edited by Hugh Lawson and Pritha Sarkar)
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