SAO PAULO, Brazil — Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for the Saturday Sprint race leading into Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix of Sao Paulo at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.
Hamilton took advantage of a fresh Mercedes powerplant and ran a best lap of 1 minute and 7.934 seconds to outpace Formula 1 point leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
“I’m so happy to be back here in Brazil! One of the marshals just said to me that I should use more often the Senna colors and flag because that’s the first pole in a long time,” Hamilton said. “Just a big, big thank you to all the team because they’ve been working flat out. It’s been so hard coming from the last race to here, taking the car apart and rebuilding it… just the man hours are insane but today was a really good qualifying session, I’m super happy with it.”
With Hamilton’s new engine, however, comes a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race because of the engine change.
“We’ve got the penalty on Sunday but we’ll give it everything we’ve got tomorrow, then I’ll do my best to try and get through the field,” Hamilton added. “I don’t know what tomorrow will hold in the Sprint but I think the weather will perhaps be a bit better which will make it a little bit more difficult for everyone, but I feel really grateful. It’s crazy because it’s been a while, so it feels like the first.”