Hamilton pips Sutil for Monza pole

Date published : 12 Sep 2009 - 14:13:58

Lewis Hamilton claimed his and McLaren s second pole position of the season in the dying moments of a thrilling qualifying session at Monza on Saturday.The world champion saw off a stern challenge from his friend Adrian Sutil, who kept Force India s remarkable momentum going to secure the team s second consecutive front-row grid spot.The 26-year-old German has been at or near the top of the timing charts all weekend and might well have taken his first Formula 1 pole but for a mistake in the first Lesmo corner on his final lap.As it was, second place was easily his best ever qualifying effort and confirmed that Force India s Spa form was no flash in the pan.The bad news for Sutil was that he will be surrounded on the grid by KERS-powered cars, with Hamilton on pole, Kimi Raikkonen leading the Ferrari challenge in third and Heikki Kovalainen taking fourth in the other McLaren.Among the world title contenders, Brawn GP comfortably got the better of Red Bull Racing and looks well-placed for the race, as Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button annexed the third row despite carrying heavy one-stop fuel loads. Hamilton served notice of his intent early in the Q3 run-off with a 1m24.605s lap that put him more than half a second clear of the competition.Sutil looked set to respond until he aborted a quick lap due to traffic, then demoted Hamilton on his final flier with a 1m24.261s despite a sideways moment in the first Lesmo and some understeer through Parabolica.Hamilton was going faster still, however, and settled the duel with a 1m24.066s to seal his second pole in four races.Raikkonen was nearly half a second adrift in third, but the tifosi will doubtless hope that a lightning KERS-assisted start can propel him into the lead before the first corner and into contention for a second consecutive win.Kovalainen s 0.8s deficit to Hamilton indicated that McLaren has split its race strategies, while Ross Brawn confirmed that both his team s cars are fuelled for one-stop races.The key for Button and Barrichello will therefore be to stay close enough to the two-stopping leaders through their opening stints to have a chance of leapfrogging them once the various strategies play out.For Red Bull the scenarios are less promising, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber starting ninth and 10th respectively, perhaps suffering from their lack of practice mileage.Sandwiching the title rivals on the grid are F1 returnee Tonio Liuzzi, an excellent seventh on his Force India debut, and Fernando Alonso s KERS-powered Renault.Giancarlo Fisichella was on the back foot going into the qualifying hour following his morning practice crash at Parabolica, and managed only 14th on the grid a fortnight after he took that sensational pole for Force India at Spa.BMW had a disastrous qualifying session as Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica suffered engine failures within minutes of each other during Q2. Kubica will line up 13th, two places ahead of his team-mate.As Nico Rosberg had predicted, Williams struggled to make up for its poor top speed and never looked like making the top-10 shootout.In fact the Grove-based team posted its worst qualifying result of the season, with Kazuki Nakajima pipping Rosberg to an inglorious 17th.Italian Grand Prix grid1.  HAMILTON      McLaren       2.  SUTIL         Force India   3.  RAIKKONEN     Ferrari       4.  KOVALAINEN    McLaren       5.  BARRICHELLO   Brawn         6.  BUTTON        Brawn         7.  LIUZZI        Force India   8.  ALONSO        Renault       9.  VETTEL        Red Bull      10. WEBBER        Red Bull    11. TRULLI        Toyota   12. GROSJEAN      Renault       13. KUBICA        BMW           14. FISICHELLA    Ferrari       15. HEIDFELD      BMW           16. GLOCK         Toyota        17. NAKAJIMA      Williams      18. ROSBERG       Williams      19. BUEMI         Toro Rosso    20. ALGUERSUARI   Toro Rosso