- Spanish GP - Qualifying
Hamilton pips Rosberg to pole as Vettel's troubles continue
Lewis Hamilton took his fourth pole position of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix, beating team-mate Nico Rosberg by 0.168s and the rest of the field by over a second.
Hamilton took provisional pole position on the first runs in Q3 before Rosberg hit back, but he then found a second on his final attempt to secure his place on the front row of the grid. After the session he said he had to "eke out everything and more" from his Mercedes to beat Rosberg to the top spot.
Daniel Ricciardo will start third for Red Bull but was over a second off the pace of the lead Mercedes. His team-mate Sebastian Vettel only got as far as the first sequence of corners after leaving the pits due to another issue with his car. As a result he will start from 10th place as his tricky weekend continues.
Valtteri Bottas managed to put his Williams fourth on the grid but was 0.4s shy of Ricciardo in third and 1.4s off Hamilton. Romain Grosjean showed just how far Lotus has come since the Chinese Grand Prix by qualifying his car fifth fastest and ahead of the two Ferraris. Kimi Raikkonen outqualified Fernando Alonso for the second time this season with a lap just 0.036s quicker than his Ferrari team-mate. Jenson Button managed to wrestle his McLaren to eighth on the grid ahead of a disappointing lap from Felipe Massa to take ninth in the Williams.
Nico Hulkenberg just missed out on a place in the top-ten shootout after clocking a time just 0.083s shy of Alonso in tenth in Q2. Sergio Perez will line up 12th in the second Force India ahead of Daniil Kvyat and Esteban Gutierrez. Kevin Magnussen will start 15th after failing to set a time in Q2 due to a technical problem, while Jean-Eric Vergne opted not to set a time because of his 10-place grid penalty for losing a wheel in FP2 that will mean he will start from dead last.
Adrian Sutil dropped out in Q1 with the Marussias, Caterhams and Pastor Maldonado, who crashed heavily on his first attempt at a flying lap. He lost the rear of the car coming out of Turn 3 and despite pulling full lock on the steering wheel, his car smashed against the inside barrier making a mess of the Lotus' nose and front suspension. Mercedes aside, the session was incredibly tight with only 0.6s separating Sebastian Vettel in third and Sutil in 17th.
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