Lewis Hamilton won the third pole position of the season after beating Sebastian Vettel in Ferrari for just five hundreds of a second while Fernando Alonso it McLaren Hondi qualified for Q3 in his home race.
Hamilton was the fastest in all three qualifying rounds, and in Q3 he was almost three seconds faster than last year and only half a second slower than Raikkonen’s ultrasoft tyre testing record.
Vettel was on the course to win the second consecutive pole position for Ferrari after Russia, but did not drive the last chicane well and was only five hundred seconds behind Hamilton.
Bottas was third in second Mercedes with two tenths behind and Raikkonen was fourth in second Ferrari with nearly three tenths behind after he was faster than Vettel in all free practice sessions and first qialifying round.
Verstappen showed Red Bull’s progress with 0.557 seconds gap to pole in fifth place in Red Bull’s best qualifying display this year while his team-mate Ricciardo was half a second slower in sixth place.
Fernando Alonso and McLaren Honda surprised everybody with their speed in Barcelona where Spaniard qualified seventh with 1.899 seconds gap to Hamilton, ahead of Perez in Force India, Massa in Williams and Ocon in the second Force India.
Magnussen missed the Q3 place for seven hundreds of a second, Sainz for a tenth, and Hulkenberg for another two hundreds behind Sainz. Romain Grosjean will start 14th in the second Haas while Wehrlein was faster than two Sauber drivers and qualified once again in Q2.
Ericsson was the 16th fastest in the second Sauber, but managed to beat one Renault (Palmer), Williams (Stroll), McLaren (Vandoorne) and Toro Rosso (Kvyat).
