Charles Coates/Getty Images Valtteri Bottas continued his excellent 2019 season on Saturday, as he led a Mercedes front-row lockout in qualifying at the Formula One Spanish Grand Prix. Mercedes were dominant throughout the day, and Bottas secured pole with a stunning time of one minute, 15.406 seconds. His team-mate Lewis Hamilton will join him at the front of the grid, while Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel will begin in third. Earlier in the day, Hamilton topped final practice, with Bottas leading the way in both sessions on Friday. Here is a recap of Saturday's action, including the key details from qualifying ahead of Sunday's race in Barcelona. Qualifying Recap Video Play Button Videos you might like With all the main names negotiating their way through Q1, the big story early on was the continued struggles of Renault. While Daniel Ricciardo was able to squeeze through into the next phase, Nico Hulkenberg had a session to forget. His front wing got stuck under his car after a collision with the barriers, prompting mid-session repairs and then an eventual elimination. F1 journalist Philip Duncan commented on what has been a challenging 2019 for the team so far: One of the biggest surprises in Q1 was the performance of McLaren's Lando Norris. He produced a fine lap to stay well clear of any cutoff and finished the session in a lofty sixth position. In the second stanza, the power of the Mercedes was again there for all to see, as Hamilton posted a time of 1:16.038 to break the circuit record; it felt inevitable he would go quicker again in the final session, too: Elsewhere, the scrap to get into the top-10 shootout was intriguing, as Ferrari's Charles Leclerc found himself in the red zone as the clock ticked down to zero. He eventually did enough to get through on his final lap, while Bottas pipped Hamilton to top spot at the end of the session. The Ferrari mechanics had some work to do before Q3: In the race for pole, Mercedes were always going to be tough to beat, and the two Silver Arrows were first to set a time. Once again, Bottas had the edge, posting a blistering marker of 1:15.406, more than sixth-tenths of a second quicker than Hamilton in second. In the second runs, neither of the front two were able to improve their times, while Vettel did enough to finish as the best of the rest. FP3 Recap At a track the drivers are so familiar with, it was strange to see a number of big names making errors in the early stages on Saturday. First it was Vettel, who spun at the chicane. A day earlier, the German had been unhappy with the lack of grip in his rear tyres and didn't appear totally at ease in Barcelona, limping to the fourth-fastest time. The same could be said for Bottas to begin with. Having looked flawless on Friday, the Finn's mistake left his Mercedes in the gravel and temporarily brought the session to a standstill: His team's Twitter account were quick to note this was out of character for a driver who is usually so dependable: Meanwhile, the battle for top spot in the standings didn't ignite until late on, when the leaders decided to give the soft tyres a go. Leclerc initially went quickest, although he was blown away by Hamilton, who reinforced just how difficult the Mercedes is going to be to beat in qualifying and on Sunday. The Briton was a massive 0.531 seconds ahead of the Ferrari, with Bottas eventually recovering to take third spot. The session was brought to a premature end when George Russell lost control of his Williams and spun into a wall with five minutes remaining.<doc-sep>Renault’s nightmare start to the 2019 Formula 1 season continued in Spain during the opening qualifying session. Nico Hulkenberg came off second best heading into the fourth corner when he locked up his front right tyre and skidded across the gravel before tapping the barrier. He was able to drive out of the sand trap and make his way around to the pits, but did drag his front wing underneath his car the entire way around the track. “Not great, not the smoothest yet, we need to do better,” Hulkenberg said after qualifying. “I’m quite disappointed with myself about that. I made a mistake on the first run, touched the wall slightly and we had to change the front wing and we also suffered bargeboard damage. If you make mistakes, you pay for them. “We could have made Q2 at a minimum today. We’re lacking a bit of pace and harmony in the car at the moment. We’ll give it our best tomorrow and aim for a better result.” Later in the first session Aussie teammate Daniel Ricciardo almost suffered a similar fate when he locked up his front tyre on the exact same corner. Thankfully he kept it on the track, but only just snuck through into the second qualifying session before making his way into the third and final session. Hulkenberg has broken his front wing after going off at Turn 4 and hitting the wall. Currently caught under the Renault car as he hobbles back to the pits #F1 #SpanishGP — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) May 11, 2019 Ricciardo couldn’t match the pace of his rivals but the Australian once again beat out his teammate and will start from 10th on the grid. “We did a pretty good job to get into Q3 today. That was the target and I certainly felt after yesterday we had the potential to achieve that,” Ricciardo said. “We probably could have been slightly higher in the order for Q3 but I lost the rear out of Turn 13 on the second run and lost some time. That stopped it from being a really good session, but, in any case, it was a strong effort today. “We have the penalty to add, but we’ll get our heads down in the race and look for points.” Mercedes duo Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton continued the 2019 trend by claiming another front row lockout. Bottas blitzed the field with a stunning qualifying lap and Hamilton gave it his all but simply couldn’t match the blistering speed of his teammate. Ferrari had mixed results in the final session of qualifying with Sebastian Vettel sitting more than half a second behind Hamilton. Charles Leclerc faced a delayed start to the session after the team worked on the damaged floor of his car. He managed to get out onto the track but couldn’t match Vettel’s speed and will start from fifth spot on the grid. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start in fourth, ahead of teammate Pierre Gasly who will start from sixth. Verstappen unleashed during the final practice session after a close encounter during a flying lap. After being held up by Lance Stroll, Verstappen was told to be careful of him starting a new lap by his pit crew. His response was rather blunt. “I know, f*** him. He also f***ed my lap so he can wait as well. D***,” Verstappen said. WARNING: Explicit language. Gezellig even de radio luisteren bij Max nadat Stroll in de weg reed tijdens VT3. Max had weinig zin om vervolgens Stroll weer voorbij te laten. Als je van veel fuckjes en getier houdt, here you go 😜 #F1 pic.twitter.com/UvtZaP1IkL — Rob van Gameren (@VanGamerenF1) May 11, 2019 F1 Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying results 1: Valterri Bottas 2: Lewis Hamilton 3: Sebastian Vettel 4: Max Verstappen 5: Chrles Leclerc 6: Pierre Gasly 7: Romain Grosjean 8: Kevin Magnussen 9: Dani Kvyat 10: Daniel Ricciardo 11: Lando Norris 12: Alex Albon 13: Carlos Sainz 14: Kimi Raikkonen 15: Sergio Perez 16: Nico Hulkenberg 17: Lance Stroll 18: Antonio Giovinazzi 19: George Russell 20: Robert Kubica<doc-sep>Valtteri claimed his ninth Formula One pole position - his third of the 2019 season and first in Barcelona. Lewis will start tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix from P2 on the grid. Both drivers will start the race on the Soft tyre. Valtteri Bottas: This feels really good. In every run in Qualifying I found room for improvement, little bits here and there, and I managed to get everything together in Q3 and had a very strong first lap. I think the package we have brought to Barcelona is working very well and the car was very strong, especially in Sector 3. All the credit for that goes to the team, thank you to everyone back in Brackley and Brixworth. Our long run pace looked good on Friday, but a lot can happen on a Sunday. The start and Turn 1 will be particularly important. Tomorrow, Lewis and I both want to win, so I'm looking forward to a hard and fair fight. Lewis Hamilton: I wasn't quick enough today and wasn't able to extract the full potential from the car. I have been struggling with the car all weekend, so I will have to look into the details, figure out how I can improve my pace and keep working. Valtteri had a good qualifying session and did a great job, so he deserved pole. Our long-run pace looked good, so hopefully we should be strong tomorrow as well. My starts have been decent so far this year, so hopefully that will continue on Sunday as it's not that easy to overtake on this track. Toto Wolff: We've brought a number of upgrades to the car this weekend, so it's good to see that we've made a step in the right direction. Valtteri was in good form today and put in a very strong first lap in Q3 and deserves to be on pole. It was a bit of an unfortunate qualifying for Lewis; he couldn't charge the battery properly because he pitted in Q2 and therefore his first run in Q3 was compromised. None of the drivers improved in their second run, because the track temperature had dropped and there was some dirt on the track as well. It's good to start the race from the front row as it is difficult to overtake on this track. Our drivers both want to win, so I'm sure we'll see a fight at the start, but I'm convinced it will be a fair. Andrew Shovlin: It's a great result to have taken the front row and encouraging to see such potential in the car. Everyone has been working very hard since the car first turned a wheel to solve some of the issues that we've had and it feels like we're making good progress. The car had good pace this morning but needed a bit of work to adjust to the much cooler track conditions. We were lucky to be able to get back out with Valtteri after his spin but fortunately there was no damage and he was able to complete the qualifying practice run at the end of the session. Both drivers were quite happy with the balance and we didn't need to change much going into qualifying. Qualifying wasn't quite plain sailing. Valtteri had a fairly clean session and put together a stunning lap for pole. Lewis was catching a bit more traffic which made it hard to get a proper feel for the car and to understand how to manage the out lap. He abandoned his final run in the second session due to a yellow flag at Turn 12, which meant the battery pack was not charged ready for the final session. We therefore put him out on track first so he could manage his own out lap, but it meant we caught a number of the cars who left late. By the final run, it seemed that the track had lost a bit of pace and there was some gravel down so few cars were able to improve. We expect it will be hotter tomorrow for the race so managing the tyres won't be easy but our long runs on Friday seemed strong so hopefully that will carry into the race tomorrow. Check out our Saturday gallery from Barcelona, here.<doc-sep>Daniel Ricciardo has been hit with a three-place grid penalty for the Spanish Grand Prix. Welcome to FOX SPORTS’ live coverage of the Practice 3 and qualifying from the Formula One Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Daniel Ricciardo faces an uphill task if he is to start in the top 10 for Sunday night’s (AEST) race after carrying over his three-place grid penalty from the incident involving Daniil Kvyat in Azerbaijan last time out. He does have a new power unit in order to fight that battle though which showed early signs of promise during Friday’s practice sessions despite him finishing in P11 and P15 respectively. Live stream the Formula 1® Spanish Grand Prix 2019 on KAYO SPORTS. Every practice, qualifying & race live & anytime in HD. Get your 14 day free trial > “There was a lot learned today,” he said after practice. “I felt the car was pretty good to start the day and better than what we showed on the timesheets. “There is more potential and we have some work to do to identify why we couldn’t demonstrate that pace over one lap. “That said, it seemed better on the high-fuel runs. Tomorrow, we’ll look to extract better qualifying pace.” Elsewhere, championship leader Valtteri Bottas continued his strong form and topped both practice sessions, the second ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton after the Brit struggled to get to grips with the car. The Ferrari duo, who moved forward their planned updates for what is seen as a crucial race for them in Spain, were just behind while Haas were the best of the rest. Track schedule (AEST): Practice 3: 20.00-21.00 Qualifying: 23.00-00.00 Follow all the action here or live and exclusive on FOX SPORTS 506. Keep up to date with all the latest goings on here with our live blog below… If the blog does not appear, please click here.<doc-sep>
Dan Istitene/Getty Images Mercedes continued their strong start to the Formula One Spanish Grand Prix in second practice on Friday, as Valtteri Bottas was again on top of the standings. The Finn was lighting quick around the Circuit de Catalunya, posting a time of one minute, 17.284 seconds in the day's second session. That was enough to put him ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who was 0.049 seconds behind. Earlier in the day, Bottas was fastest for Mercedes in FP1, with the Ferrari pair of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc in second and third respectively. Here is a recap of Friday's action from Barcelona, including the full standings from both practice sessions. FP2 Recap Video Play Button Videos you might like With Bottas and Hamilton split by the two Ferrari drivers in the early runs, it wasn't completely clear which team would have the edge going into final practice and qualifying on Saturday. However, it would appear Mercedes are again the team to beat. Hamilton was first to go the top of the standings, although he wasn't there for long, as his team-mate produced a better final sector on the soft tyre to move in front again. As the Autosport Live Twitter account relayed, the Mercedes has a big advantage over Ferrari in the final two sectors of the track: The Pirelli Motorsport Twitter account noted that the drivers are already much improved on their times from 2018: There was a small worry for Mercedes at the end of the session when Hamilton complained about a loss of power, although he was able to get his car back to the garage. Ferrari appear to be the best of the rest in Barcelona, as they were a significant way behind the Silver Arrows but comfortably ahead of the other cars in the field. Those seeking some drama in FP3 and qualifying may look to the battle to be on the third row of the grid. Based on Friday's data, there's little separating the Red Bull and Haas teams, with the four drivers from those teams tightly bunched on the standings. FP1 Recap Both Ferrari drivers were fast out of the blocks, and they set the early pace on a crucial weekend for the Italian outfit. However, they were both eclipsed by Bottas once the Finn strapped on the soft tyres. He also had a close call with Max Verstappen early in the session as the Dutchman just avoided him while on a fast lap: The pair both ended the session in the pits as their cars were investigated for apparent oil leaks. That was small fry compared with Lance Stroll's late issues, though. The Racing Point driver crunched nose first into the barriers at Turn 9, drawing a red flag moments before the end of the session while causing major damage to his car. The 20-year-old was able to walk away from the crash and appeared unhurt. But Racing Point will have a job on their hands to repair the damage.