Lewis Hamilton hailed his Mercedes team for its “calm, cool and collected” approach to Japanese Grand Prix qualifying as he took the 80th pole of his Formula 1 career.
Hamilton led the way through all three practice sessions and cruised through to Q3, setting the quickest time on his first push lap before the intermittent rain that had fallen returned in heavier fashion.
It marked the 80th pole position of his career – the first driver to achieve the feat.
It was in stark contrast to the fortunes of title rival Sebastian Vettel, who was left down in ninth place after a series of driver and team errors during the session.
“It’s been an incredible year,” he said. “It’s my 80th, I can’t believe I have 80. I never in a million years thought I would get to 80.
“The last six years with this team has been incredible, I’m proud of everyone, I’m so grateful for everyone’s hard work.
“You see today we did such a great job in terms of timing, today [there were] no mistakes even though there was a lot of pressure on us as there always it.
“Everyone was calm cool and collected, it’s an amazing journey to be on this team. That’s not the end, 80 is not the end, but it’s a milestone I’m very proud of.”
Hamilton went on to praise Mercedes’ approach to Q3 as it avoided the potential pitfalls that the brief post-Q2 rain shower provided.
“[Qualifying] started out okay but you look out of the garage and see its spitting but very humid,” he said.
“I saw a couple of cars spin, it’s very, very difficult to know if the track was dry or wet, obviously we didn’t have any practice in the wet, it looked like it would be wet for Q3.
“It’s definitely not great going into Q3 knowing you’ve had pace to be at the front and knowing mistakes can come in those tricky position, [but] we’re all in same boat.
“We were waiting for someone else to go first, Ferrari pulled out on Inters and I didn’t think it was the right decision.
“Obviously we made the right decision as a team, it was an anti-climax as we didn’t do that second lap.
“I wish you could see going into Turn 1, as you come out of the last corner and there’s no spots on your visor, then one spit, two spits, 10 spits, at Turn 1 you’re not sure if wet or dry so I tip-toed in there and lucky I did that as others went off.”
Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas will join Hamilton on the front row of the grid.
