Hamilton Grabs The Pole In Barcelona
Lewis Hamilton gives McLaren's its 150th pole position!

Team McLaren and Lewis Hamilton will be first on the gird for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix, qualifying ahead of William's Maldonado and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso. This is Hamilton's third pole position of the year and his first ever at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Lewis Hamilton's final lap of the session was four-tenths of a second faster than runner-up Maldonado. Unfortunately for McLaren, teammate Jenson Button will start from 11th position.

2012 Spanish Grand Prix grid:

1 Lewis Hamilton - McLaren-Mercedes 1'21.707
2 Pastor Maldonado - Williams-Renault 1'22.285
3 Fernando Alonso - Ferrari 1'22.302
4 Romain Grosjean - Lotus-Renault 1'22.424
5 Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus-Renault 1'22.487
6 Sergio Perez - Sauber-Ferrari 1'22.533
7 Nico Rosberg - Mercedes 1'23.005
8 Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing-Renault No time
9 Michael Schumacher - Mercedes No time
10 Kamui Kobayashi - Sauber-Ferrari No time
11 Jenson Button - McLaren-Mercedes 1'22.944
12 Mark Webber - Red Bull Racing-Renault 1'22.977
13 Paul di Resta - Force India-Mercedes 1'23.125
14 Nico Hulkenberg - Force India-Mercedes 1'23.177
15 Jean-Eric Vergne - STR-Ferrari 1'23.265
16 Daniel Ricciardo - STR-Ferrari 1'23.442
17 Felipe Massa - Ferrari 1'23.444
18 Bruno Senna - Williams-Renault 1'24.981
19 Vitaly Petrov - Caterham-Renault 1'25:277
20 Heikki Kovalainen - Caterham-Renault 1'25:507
21 Charles Pic - Marussia-Cosworth 1'26:582
22 Timo Glock - Marussia-Cosworth 1'27:032
23 Pedro de la Rosa - HRT-Cosworth 1'27:555
24 Narain Karthikeyan - HRT-Cosworth 1'31:122

 

Super Nando !

 

McLaren, Williams, Ferrari and Lotus in the top 4.

Just like the old days!

 

Loving this season so far!

 

Hamilton stripped of pole position
Source: AFP

Saturday, May 12, 2012 - 1:53 PM

Formula 1 - Lewis Hamilton will start at the back of the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix after stewards ruled he was under-fueled for his final run.

Pastor Maldonado, who finished second in qualifying for Williams, will now start from pole position, his first in Formula One.

Hamilton blew the field away with his final effort - a 1:21.707 - which was almost six-tenths clear of his nearest challenger.

But having completed the lap he was instructed by his team to pull up on the track, with his race engineer suggesting over the radio there was a technical problem with the car.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh had subsequently confirmed that Hamilton only had 1.3 litres of fuel left in the tank when the Brit parked on the Circuit de Catalunya, meaning that the McLaren did not have enough to return to the pits and provide a full one litre fuel sample as stipulated by the FIA rules.

However, Whitmarsh had also added that he felt a technical issue exonerated McLaren.

"There was enough fuel to take a fuel sample," Whitmarsh said. "But we stopped the car, we're now talking to the stewards about that, but there was 1.3 litres of fuel taken out of the car. The regulations are you have to do that [in] lap unless there is a force majeure. That's the discussion that will probably happen. If it's considered to be force majeure then it's OK."

"It was technical. It's not for me to decide, but I would believe it to be force majeure. Now it's for the stewards to decide."

The rules on under-fuelling were reviewed and strengthened after a similar incident involving Hamilton at the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix. On that occasion Hamilton was reprimanded and his team fined $10,000.

More to follow.

 

That's a nice gift for Sir Frank.

 

Spoiler alert

 

No spoiler alert, DJ posted this too soon.

My understanding of what's been written elsewhere makes me think that Hamilton won't receive any credit at all for earning pole or even participating in qualifying. I'm interested in figuring this out for fantasy league purposes. The term that caught my eye was "excluded from qualifying."

Read it here: Formula 1

 

I just like that DJ posted "Hamilton grabs the pole..."