Lewis Hamilton conjured an impressive qualifying lap to claim his first pole position for eight races ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.
Since last starting from top spot on the grid in Spain in May, Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg has claimed six poles in seven grands prix, whilst Hamilton has endured a catalogue of woes.
But in a straight fight around a power circuit such as Monza, it was Hamilton who blew everybody out of the water — finishing more than a quarter of a second faster than Rosberg as Mercedes clinched their seventh front-row lock-out of the campaign.
Practice had proven troublesome for both Mercedes drivers, with Hamilton incurring an electrical fault that sidelined him for an hour in FP2, whilst Rosberg sat out most of FP3 with a gearbox problem.
The latter was naturally more a concern for Mercedes, with Rosberg’s mechanics working through their lunch break to get him back on track for qualifying.
However, the German found himself trailing behind Hamilton in each of the three sessions, never more so than when it mattered most in Q3.
After their first flying laps Hamilton had blitzed Rosberg by 0.443 seconds, and although the latter managed to marginally improve on his second run, it was nowhere enough to eclipse Hamilton’s time of one minute 24.109 seconds.
Hamilton’s time was just 0.354secs off of last year’s best from Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.
It proves beyond doubt that despite the introduction of the 1.6-litre V6 power units for this season, the technology is fast catching up on their old V8 counterparts, even if the lack of noise is still a turn off for some fans.
Behind the Mercedes pair is an all-Williams second row spearheaded by Valtteri Bottas ahead of Felipe Massa, with the Finn almost six tenths of a second behind Hamilton.
McLaren showed considerable improvement to claim fifth and sixth, with Kevin Magnussen ahead of Jenson Button by just 0.065secs.
The lead Ferrari on their home turf only starts seventh courtesy of Fernando Alonso, with Red Bull pair Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo — winner of the last two races — eighth and ninth ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez.
