Lewis Hamilton claimed the 64th career pole position of his Formula One career - his third in four years at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and third of the 2017 season on Saturday afternoon in Spain where he also secured the Mercedes team's fifth consecutive pole position around the Barcelona track.
The triple world champion has been strong here all weekend and the pole position was simply a culmination of all his efforts from the opening lap of Fridays first free practice session. However, he did admit that he had to fight for every millisecond to ensure they finished ahead of the Ferrari piloted by Sebastian Vettel.
“That was a really intense qualifying. We had to pull out every millisecond we could to take pole,” he explained afterwards. “We made some changes ahead of qualifying and the car felt great, so I was very happy with it. The race pace is looking good and the team has done an incredible job this weekend, as always.”
“I don't know if the guys back at the factory get tired of hearing this, but they've done an incredible job. To make this step forward and bring a great package for this weekend to keep us in the fight with the Ferrari, I'm so grateful to them. We'll work as hard as we can on Sunday so that effort doesn't go to waste.”
This pole position also puts him one away from the legendary Ayrton Senna's pole record of 65 pole positions but he isn't thinking too much about that statistic at present, he is more concerned with taking the Spanish win here on Sunday.
