Upset stomach no red flag for Hamilton at 'amazing' Qatar GP circuit

DOHA • Lewis Hamilton maintained the momentum from last week's stunning win in Brazil to claim pole for the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix after qualifying yesterday.

Max Verstappen, who leads his Mercedes rival by 14 points with three races to go, will start alongside Hamilton on the front row.

But the gap will give all at Red Bull a restless night - almost half a second, a clear sign Hamilton's new engine fitted last weekend has injected fresh life into his quest for an unprecedented eighth world title.

His flying lap time of 1min 20.827sec that clinched Qatar's first pole position proved too much for Verstappen, who was 0.455sec slower.

Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas posted the third-quickest time under floodlights at the Losail circuit to fill the second row with Pierre Gasly for AlphaTauri.

Mercedes were handed an unexpected advantage in their titanic title battle with Red Bull, after Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez failed to make it to the Q3 top 10 shoot-out.

With the Mexican down in the sixth row on today's grid, Red Bull's tactics to upset Mercedes rest on a one-man band named Verstappen.

This was Hamilton's 102nd career pole and his first since Hungary almost four months ago, leaving the Briton impressed with the Losail track. "You have to try and carry that through into qualifying. We didn't have any traffic and that last lap was beautiful. This track is amazing to drive - all medium and fast corners," he said.

"Yesterday was a really difficult day for me. Thursday and Friday I wasn't feeling too well - I had a bit of stomach ache.

"I was off (the pace) yesterday so really had to dig deep. I was here till midnight working late. We found a lot of areas I could improve, made some changes for final practice and it seemed to work.

"Being such a fast circuit I don't think it will be the easiest of circuits to follow but it's also not massively degrading the tyres."

1 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes

2 Max Verstappen (Ned) Red Bull

2ND ROW

3 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes

4 Pierre Gasly (Fra) AlphaTauri

3RD ROW

5 Fernando Alonso (Esp) Alpine

6 Lando Norris (Gbr) McLaren

4TH ROW

7 Carlos Sainz (Esp) Ferrari

8 Yuki Tsunoda (Jpn) AlphaTauri

5TH ROW

9 Esteban Ocon (Fra) Alpine

10 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Aston Martin

SELECTED

11 Sergio Perez (Mex) Red Bull

13 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari

Hamilton now appears to be in the ascendancy but Verstappen is keeping faith that he can fend off his rival today.

"Just lacking a bit of pace. It has been just a bit more tricky for us again in qualifying, you could even see that - Checo (Perez) is not even in Q3 so you can see we are struggling a bit more than normal. Still second, so it is all to play for still," the Dutchman said.

After Qatar, F1 travels to Saudi Arabia, another inaugural race, in a fortnight before the championship closes in Abu Dhabi on Dec 12.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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