Imperious Hamilton storms to Monza pole by 0.5s

Lewis Hamilton was in dominant form as he took pole position for the Italian Grand Prix by half a second from team-mate Nico Rosberg.

Having extended his advantage over Rosberg to 0.4s in the final practice session, Hamilton was untouchable in qualifying. The championship leader set the pace on the first runs in Q3 as Rosberg failed to match his team-mate’s Q2 time - which was set on soft tyres - and the German only improved by 0.1s on his second run.

Rosberg's time was still over 0.1s shy of Hamilton's Q2 lap and despite already having secured his 56th pole position the three-time world champion duly found even more time on his final attempt to extend the advantage to half a second.

Sebastian Vettel will start from third place after a good final lap which left him within 0.4s of Rosberg, edging out team-mate Kimi Raikkonen by 0.093s as the Finn failed to improve on his second run. Valtteri Bottas secured fifth place by just 0.001s from Daniel Ricciardo, with Max Verstappen seventh ahead of the two Force Indias.

Esteban Gutierrez had an impressive session to reach Q3 but will start 10th after he ran wide at the second Lesmo on his first run, aborting the lap and failing to match his Q2 pace with his one timed attempt.

Mercedes was able to progress from Q2 on soft tyres but Hamilton locked up slightly at the first chicane and complained of a small flat-spot. As a result, Hamilton went for a second run to try and improve so he could start the race on a different set of tyres, but failed to do so and is likely to have to start the race on slightly flat-spotted tyres.

Ricciardo was ninth and Verstappen tenth after their first runs in Q2 on softs, needing to run the supersofts for their second attempts. Both progressed with improvements, while Gutierrez impressed with the seventh-fastest lap to take Haas through to Q3 for the first time.

There was a clear difference between the Williams drivers in the second part of qualifying, as Bottas progressed in fourth place with just one run, but team-mate Felipe Massa dropped out in 11th place ahead of Romain Grosjean who will take a five-place gearbox penalty. The two McLarens also dropped out - with Fernando Alonso ahead of Jenson Button - but were split by Pascal Wehrlein’s Manor.

In Q1, Esteban Ocon’s session ended at the start of his first timed lap, with the Frenchman going straight on and stopping at the first chicane. Ocon took to the radio to inform the team he has “the same problem again”. It was an unfortunate result for Ocon, as team-mate Wehrlein progressed to Q2.

Kevin Magnussen ran wide on the exit of the Ascari chicane which cost him a chance of improving and saw him drop out as the slowest driver to set a time, 0.2s off team-mate Jolyon Palmer. The two Saubers were just ahead of the Renaults, with Felipe Nasr complaining of a misfire which hampered his chances.

Daniil Kvyat again dropped out in Q1, finishing 17th just 0.042s slower than Alonso as the Spaniard scraped through.

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