F1 – GP Portugal 2020 | Portimao: Hamilton master class...

Lewis Hamilton was not ahead of his teammate except in the final seconds, where with another spectacular display in the single turn, and when Valtteri Bottas sang the pole, the Englishman beat him by a tenth in a clear and unappealable way. It is Hamilton’s 97th pole position in F1, which on Sunday can beat Michael Schumacher’s 91 victories, which he equaled two weeks ago at the Nurburgring. To the humiliation of their rivals, the two cars used the medium tires, while their rivals used the soft ones. Carlos Sainz will start seventh through the clean area of ​​the asphalt.

Carlos Sainz was struggling with a particular strategy devised by McLaren. As the tires lasted longer than usual, they decided to warm up the only game available for two initial slow laps, to deliver the ax in the second. The Madrilenian surpassed Lando Norris and achieved the seventh, but was only one tenth of the sixth of Alexander Albon.

Perhaps rushing until the end of the session, as both McLaren had more than two minutes left, they could have rushed the last improvement of the asphalt, but it is pure speculation. The fight will be on Sunday against Albon, Checo Pérez and Charles Leclerc, who in the race should be giving up places, as has happened to Ferrari in recent appointments. The podium is very difficult, but not a possible fourth place.

Sainz explained that the wind “was increasing in the last part of the session, which I think has hurt us.” It is one of the issues that affects this MCL35 very negatively and that has already happened more times this season.

The Leclerc thing is spectacular, because it takes a performance from the SF1000 that it does not have at the moment, while Sebastian Vettel, with the same strategy, was eliminated in Q2 and will start fifteenth. There are more comments in this duel of the Scuderia.

1º L. Hamilton (M) Mercedes 1’16″652 21

2º V. Bottas (M) Mercedes 1’16 “754 17

3º M. Verstappen (B) Red Bull 1’16″904 23

4º C. Leclerc (B) Ferrari 1’17″090 23

5º S. Perez (B) Racing Point 1’17″223 21

6º A. Albon (B) Red Bull 1’17″437 29

7th Carlos Sainz (B) McLaren 1’17 “520 24

8º L. Norris (B) McLaren 1’17″525 24

9º P. Gasly (B) AlphaTauri 1’17″803 26

10º D. Ricciardo (B) Renault 17

11º E. Ocon (B) Renault 1’17″614 18

12º L. Stroll (B) Racing Point 1’17″626 22

13º D. Kvyat (B) AlphaTauri 1’17″728 22

14º G. Russell (B) Williams 1’17″788 17

15º S. Vettel (M) Ferrari 1’17″919 20

16º K. Raikkonen (B) Alfa Romeo 1’18″201 12

17th A. Giovinazzi (B) Alfa Romeo 1’18 “223 12

18º R. Grosjean (B) Haas 1’18″364 12

19º K. Magnussen (B) Haas 1’18 “508 10

20º N. Latifi (B) Williams 1’18 “777 11

With just one attempt, Sainz clinched the fifth fastest time in the top ten on the grid. He did it ahead of Norris and aborting again on the second attempt when he saw that with his first half he was overflowing.

The surprises were the eliminations of Esteban Ocon (11), Lance Stroll (12) and Sebastian Vettel (15). The funny thing is that the four-time champion. The funny thing is that he preferred to go out with two media games and sacrifice the starting position to have a better strategy for the race. Leclerc did exactly the same, but qualified eighth, half a second better on his time than the German. That is the distance unfortunately for Seb.

Sainz was making a second attempt in Q1, where he arrived with one of the best first sectors, but when he saw that no one could eliminate him, he went into the pit not to give any information to his rivals. The Spaniard passed as 11th, Norris as 9th and Hamilton as first. Gasly was the surprise with fourth place, but with two games of softs.

The start of the session was delayed for half an hour (until 3:00 p.m.) to repair and check the covers of the drain grates of the entire Portimao runway. In Free Practice 3, Vettel’s car lifted one of them, which had to be urgently sealed with cement, which caused the aforementioned delay.