Lewis Hamilton secures 92nd career pole position at Spanish Grand Prix

It's back to status quo at the qualifying session at the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain. Mercedes led the pack as expected, with Lewis Hamilton beating teammate Valtteri Bottas to secure his 92nd career pole position.

This is Hamilton's fourth pole out of six races this season, and he edged out his teammate by the slimmest of margins. The Brit was only separated from the Finn by a mere 0.059s. Last week's race winner, Max Verstappen, took the third spot for Red Bull Racing, but he was a very distant 0.7s off pace.

"It's the maximum we can do at the moment. I hope we can be a bit quicker in the race," said Verstappen, in the post-qualifying interview. The Red Bull star knows that all is not lost, especially after he won last week's 70th Anniversary Grand Prix from all the way in 4th position. On Sunday, he will be enjoying a good slipstream as the cars approach turn 1 from off the grid. Both Hamilton and Bottas know that the work is not done.

"It's a long way down to Turn 1 tomorrow and I'll be trying to get there first," said Bottas.

Elsewhere on the grid, Sergio Perez made his post-COVID-19 comeback in style by qualifying up in 4th place ahead of Racing Point teammate Lance Stroll. They split up the Red Bulls with Verstappen ahead and Alexander Albon just behind them in 6th place.

The McLarens of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris locked out 7th and 8th position with Ferrari's Charles LeClerc in 8th. Meanwhile, his teammate Sebastian Vettel failed to make it out of Q2 once again, managing only to qualify in 11th place.

Kimi Raikkonen caused quite a stir at the end of Q1 after he managed to make it to Q2 for the first time this season. The small victory for the Alfa Romeo driver came at the expense of George Russell and Williams, who failed to make it out of Q1 for the first time this season.