Lewis Hamilton continues to rampage through his rookie season in Formula One, following up his fantastic performance in Canada last weekend by claiming pole position for Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.
The English sensation recorded his first pole and then his maiden victory in Montreal and again showed why he has quickly become one of the hottest stars in the business in qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday.
Hamilton stormed around the Brickyard circuit to record a fastest lap of one minute, 12,331 seconds, just less than two-10ths of a second quicker than that of his McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso, who completes a McLaren 1-2 on the front row of the grid — a repeat of their Montreal qualifying efforts seven days ago.
Starting from the front will give Hamilton (22) a great opportunity to extend his rookie record of six consecutive podium finishes and indeed a good chance to claim his second win in a row.
”I’m quite surprised, to be honest,” said Hamilton. ”Going into qualifying we hadn’t found the optimum set-up and I knew Fernando was quick here.”
Ferrari’s Brazilian Felipe Massa was third fastest ahead of his Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who qualified fourth.
Hamilton added: ”It’s good to see we’re ahead of the Ferraris. I had to pull it all out, but my last two laps in third qualifying were just right.”
Alonso said: ”It’s a good weekend for me now. I was fastest in practice and in qualifying one and two, but not in qualifying three. But being fastest all weekend has given me a lot of confidence — we’ll have a strong race on Sunday.”
German Nick Heidfeld was fifth in a BMW Sauber and will share the grid’s third row with Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen in a Renault.
BMW’s 19-year-old Sebastian Vettel will start his grand prix debut from seventh ahead of Jarno Trulli in a Toyota, with Australian Mark Webber ninth for Red Bull and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella of Renault tenth.
Alonso was quickest in a fairly quiet first mini-session of qualifying ahead of Hamilton and Fisichella.
At the end of the 15-minute period the slowest six cars were eliminated and that meant Dutchman Christijan Albers, in a Spyker, and his German teammate Adrian Sutil will start from the 11th, and final, row of the grid as they did in Canada.
Ahead of them, but also looking to work from the rear of the field, will be American home favourite Scott Speed of Torro Rosso and his Italian teammate Vitantonio Luizzi, who missed out on the second qualifying period for the first time in the past four grands prix.
Japanese Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato and Austrian Alex Wurz of Williams had to settle for places on the grid’s ninth row.
The second mini session again saw Alonso fastest with Hamilton and Raikkonen just behind. This time Britain’s Anthony Davidson of Super Aguri and Honda’s Brazilian Rubens Barrichello were knocked out to start on the eighth row of the grid.
Directly ahead of them will be Germany’s Nico Rosberg of Williams just behind Englishman Jenson Button of Honda, who will be 13th on the grid.
Under-pressure German Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher and Britain’s David Coulthard of Red Bull Racing were the final drivers to be eliminated and will take their places on the sixth row, starting 12th and 11th respectively. — Sapa-AFP