Lewis Hamilton claimed his fourth pole position of the season, securing an all-McLaren front row with Belgian Grand Prix winner Jenson Button alongside him.
This qualifying result was McLaren’s 63rd front row sweep in Formula One, a new record in the sport’s rich history.
After setting the quickest time in the second and third practice sessions, Hamilton maintained his strong form to lap the high-speed Monza circuit with a time of one minute, 24.010 seconds in Q3.
That lap time proved unbeatable with Button eventually joining his team-mate just 0.123 seconds slower.
Jenson’s Q3 lap demoted Felipe Massa to third and yet this was the best qualifying performance from the Ferrari driver all season.
As for the championship leader, this was a disastrous session for Massa’s team-mate Fernando Alonso – who was only tenth – 1.4 seconds adrift. The Scuderia reported on Twitter that a suspected anti-rollbar failure was the cause.
Paul di Resta qualified an excellent fourth, although the Force India driver will drop down to ninth following a gearbox-change penalty.
His team-mate Nico Hulkenberg suffered an apparent gearbox problem at the start of Q1 and will start the Italian Grand Prix right at the back.
Red Bull Racing had another muted qualifying session. Sebastian Vettel could only manage sixth, while his team-mate Mark Webber did not even make Q3, missing the cut by 0.067 seconds as he took eleventh.
Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg sandwich Vettel in fifth and seventh.
Kimi Raikkonen qualified eighth for Lotus, ahead of the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi.
It was also a tough qualifying session for Williams. A mistake on the exit of the Ascaris left Pastor Maldonado P12 in Q2, but will become P22 on the grid due to his Spa penalties. Bruno Senna was only P14.
Romain Grosjean’s substitute Jerome d’Ambrosio was around 0.7 seconds off team-mate Raikkonen’s pace throughout qualifying, which left him P16 for his Lotus debut.
D’Ambrosio had a brief scare in Q1 when an error on his first run left him behind Heikki Kovalainen’s Caterham and in danger of elimination, but he switched to the softer Pirelli compound and made the cut with his last attempt.
Qualifying position for the Italian Grand Prix:
1. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.010s
2. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.133s
3. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m24.247s
4. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m24.540s
5. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m24.802s
6. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.833s
7. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m24.855s
8. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.109s
9. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m24.304s*
10. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m25.678s
11. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m24.809s
12. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m24.901s
13. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m25.042s
14. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m25.312s
15. Jerome d’Ambrosio Lotus-Renault 1m25.408s
16. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m25.441s
17. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m26.382s
18. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m26.887s
19. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m27.039s
20. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m27.073s
21. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m27.441s
22. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m24.820s**
23. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 1m27.629s
24. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes No time***
107 per cent time: 1m30.076s
*Five-place penalty due to gearbox change
**Two five-place penalties due to infringements during the Belgian Grand Prix
***Failed to beat 107% time, needs a dispensation from the stewards to start
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was left feeling surprised by his qualifying lap at Monza. Autosport.com has the story.
Lewis Hamilton admitted he was surprised his Monza pole lap was good enough, as he felt he could have done much better.
The Briton set his 1m24.010s pole time early in Q3 and it could not be beaten.
Team-mate Jenson Button eventually moved into second to give McLaren a front row sweep.
“I think practice was a lot better for me, I did much better laps in practice,” said Hamilton, who was faster on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
“Generally I didn’t think that lap was anywhere near good enough and I was up a couple of tenths on my second lap, but I was in a train of cars so was not able to better my lap.
“Nonetheless I am happy, and happy for team – they are doing a fantastic job.
“They had great success in the last race with Jenson and to have us both up here is what they deserve.”
Although Hamilton’s future has been a hot topic of conversation this weekend as stories of a potential 2013 Mercedes move emerged, the poleman insisted his concentration was completely on the race.
“I haven’t had any distractions this weekend so it’s been positive,” said Hamilton.
“The support from family and friends has been incredible so I’m enjoying the weekend, and it’s been pretty smooth weekend.”
Championship leader Fernando Alonso suffered a suspected broken rear anti-rollbar during Q3. Without that problem, the Ferrari driver would have taken an easy pole position at Monza. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso missed out on his ‘easiest’ chance for a pole position in 2012 after suffering a suspected broken rear anti-rollbar in Q3 for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
The world championship leader, challenging for his third pole position of the year (having started at the front at Silverstone and Hockenheim), was fastest of all in the first two segments of qualifying.
But he drifted way off the pace in Q3 before settling for 10th and heading back into the pits, while his team-mate Felipe Massa qualified third.
“It’s a shame because I think it would have been the easiest pole position of the year for us,” said Alonso.
“We did 1m24.1s in Q1 with an easy lap and then looking at it, 1m24.0s was, let’s say, easy for us to do.
“We lost one big opportunity but nothing we can do now. We’ll try to be strong tomorrow, the car will be fixed and we will see what we can do from 10th.
“Something broke in the car in Q3, so we had no time to fix it, so we went out just to see if we could beat some of the cars but unfortunately we were not able because we lost too much performance,” he added.
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali confirmed that it was an issue with the rollbar.
“It seems to be [a problem] with the rear bar,” the Italian told Sky. “It seems to be a mechanical failure. We need to wait for the car to come back.
“We knew that the car was not good because Fernando understood exactly the situation straight away, so that’s very unfortunate but that’s the way it is.
“Of course we are very disappointed because we could have done a great qualifying with Fernando and at least we are pleased that Felipe did a good job. He is there just behind the McLarens.”
Jenson Button says he was not tempted to try and work out a slipstreaming deal with his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix.
According to the Belgian GP winner, who qualified second at Monza, it was too difficult to try and orchestrate a slipstream from Hamilton during qualifying, a trick that Ferrari used throughout the session with Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.
“It is something that personally I feel it is difficult to plan,” Button said.
“It is difficult to get it right. You concentrate too much on it and getting the braking point right. The way we did it was much better, just finding traffic on the circuit.”
However, Button did admit that he scored a tow from Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull in Q3, and that it made a big difference.
“In Q3 I realised how much [difference] a tow makes,” he added. “I was able to get a reasonable tow off Vettel, which surprisingly made a big difference.”
Button also said he was delighted to be starting next to Hamilton, even if Monza’s first corner is notorious for first lap crashes.
“For us both to be on the front row is fantastic for the team. The last three races we have shown strength, and qualifying both cars on front row is great, so thank you very much.
“It doesn’t matter who is alongside you, [the first corner] is always an interesting corner, especially because it is such a long run down there. You cannot plan it.”
Source: Autosport.com
For the first time this season, Felipe Massa has outqualified his team-mate at the team’s home race in Monza. Eurosport has the details.
Felipe Massa says the Italian Grand Prix is an “important race”, as he looks to convert his third place grid position into his first podium of the 2012 season.
The Ferrari driver took his best qualifying result of what has been a challenging season at Monza, outqualifying his team-mate Fernando Alonso for the first time this year.
Now he says the pressure is on to perform during what is the most important race of the season for Ferrari.
“I think I know the pressure I have,” Massa said.
“You always have a lot of pressure, and just need to concentrate on the race. It is an important race tomorrow for me and the team; let’s concentrate on that. When you race for Ferrari you have a lot of pressure.”
Despite being outqualified by both McLarens, Massa refused to rule out taking his first race win since Brazil in 2008, and his first Formula 1 win at Monza.
“We go to the grid to think about victory and doing maximum we can in the race,” he said.
“[McLaren] are strong and quick; we know how different the race is compared to qualifying so I’ll do everything I can.
“I am happy with the car. I am very happy with the performance and concentrated for the race.
“Unfortunately I’ve never won here in F1, but I’m always doing good races in F1. I enjoy it a lot, I lived close by when I did Formula Renault.
“I hope we have fantastic race tomorrow.”
Williams driver Pastor Maldonado admits that it will be a difficult race at Monza starting at the back. Story taken from Eurosport.
Pastor Maldonado admits that getting a good result out of the Italian Grand Prix will be a struggle from 22nd on the grid.
The Williams driver was 12th fastest in qualifying at Monza, but will start from the second-last row thanks to the two consecutive five-place grid penalties he picked up during the Belgian Grand Prix – one for jumping the start and one for his part in the crash with Timo Glock.
“It will be difficult tomorrow,” he said.
“We knew we had 10 places and today was not the best day for our car.
“We were struggling a little bit. Especially on the last lap I didn’t put everything together, and everything is so close.
“Tomorrow [will be a] hard race, but I’m looking forward to seeing what we could do.
“We are not the best in the second sector or the straights. The combination of the set-up we have is not the best for qualifying, so we will see tomorrow.”