{"id":6466,"date":"2018-10-06T15:04:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T19:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=6466"},"modified":"2018-10-06T15:09:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T19:09:25","slug":"japanese-gp-lewis-hamilton-takes-pole-sebastian-vettel-only-ninth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2018\/10\/06\/japanese-gp-lewis-hamilton-takes-pole-sebastian-vettel-only-ninth\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese GP \u2013 Lewis Hamilton Takes Pole, Sebastian Vettel Only Ninth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton<\/strong> clinched his 80th<\/sup> career pole position and his eighth pole of the 2018 Formula 1<\/strong> season at the Suzuka<\/strong> race track at the Japanese GP<\/strong><\/a>. Valtteri Bottas<\/strong> completed the Mercedes 1-2 as the rain came down in Q3. Max Verstappen <\/strong>finished third ahead of Kimi Raikkonen<\/strong>.\u00a0Romain Grosjean<\/strong> finished fifth, as Sebastian Vettel<\/strong> could only qualify ninth because of a tactical error.<\/p>\n

Brendon Hartley<\/strong> and Pierre Gasly<\/strong> finished sixth and seventh respectively on a triumphant day for Toro Rosso-Honda<\/strong> at their home race. Esteban Ocon<\/strong>, Sebastian Vettel, and Sergio Perez<\/strong> rounded off the top 10 positions.<\/p>\n

Update: Ocon has a 3-place grid penalty for a red flag infringement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton Takes Pole, Sebastian Vettel Only Ninth<\/h1>\n

The qualifying session started under sunny skies but with a 60% chance of rain. The three Pirelli tyre compounds for this race are the white-striped medium<\/strong> tyres, yellow-striped soft<\/strong> tyres, and the red-striped supersoft<\/strong> tyres. There is one DRS zone at this fast and highly technical circuit. Nico Hulkenberg<\/strong> suffered a heavy crash in FP3, but Renault<\/strong> repaired his car in time for qualification.<\/p>\n

Q1: Nico Hulkenberg Eliminated Even as Marcus Ericsson Crashes<\/h2>\n

The eighteen-minute long first session of qualifying got underway with all the drivers on the track immediately. Vettel survived a spin even as Ericsson crashed and brought out the red flag.<\/p>\n

McLaren<\/strong> continued their wretched form in qualification as both their drivers were eliminated. Hulkenberg was pushed into the drop zone by the final laps of Lance Stroll and his teammate Carlos Sainz.<\/p>\n

Q1 dropzone: Nico Hulkenberg, Sergey Sirotkin, Fernando Alonso, Stoffel Vandoorne, Marcus Ericsson.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Dirty air, conditions, too much speed…<\/p>\n

What ever the chief cause, Marcus Ericsson will be starting P20 tomorrow#JapaneseGP<\/a> \ud83c\uddef\ud83c\uddf5 #F1<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/yaMMr8hpOR<\/a><\/p>\n

— Formula 1 (@F1) October 6, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n