Russell narrowly beats Hamilton to Barcelona Grand Prix pole

"Nice to feel the groove again!" Russell said over the team radio after narrowly defeating Hamilton today. Just 0.064 seconds separated the two former teammates on Saturday afternoon. Antonelli, in P3, finished more than three tenths behind his teammate.

Lando Norris will complete the second row, while Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar will start from the third row after finishing fifth and sixth respectively. The Frenchman was once again able to stay close to the four-time world champion.

Oscar Piastri will start from seventh place, while Liam Lawson and Nico Hulkenberg completed the top nine. Charles Leclerc will start tenth after crashing out on his first run in Q3 at Turn 4 and causing a red flag.

It was an incident-free first session in Barcelona, with only Lance Stroll going wide into the gravel trap when exiting Turn 10, but he was able to continue.

The frontrunners had no issues getting through, with Hamilton topping the session with a 1:15.6. Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon were eliminated, along with the two Cadillacs and the Aston Martins. Sergio Perez finished ahead of Valtteri Bottas once again, while Stroll managed to outqualify his experienced teammate, Fernando Alonso.

Russell set the pace in Q2 today. Out of the frontrunners, the two McLarens were the closest to being eliminated, but that was because they completed their first attempts on a used set of soft tyres. After their second runs, their progression to Q3 was not in doubt.

Lawson and Hulkenberg were the final two drivers to qualify for the final session of the day. Together with the two Alpine cars, Arvid Lindblad, Gabriel Bortoleto, Oliver Bearman and Carlos Sainz were knocked out.