⁍ Red Bull’s Max Verstappen seized second place on the starting grid for the race in Sochi.

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⁍ Hamilton, who has a 55-point lead over Bottas in the championship, will equal Michael Schumacher’s all-time win record if he takes his seventh victory of the season on Sunday.

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⁍ The pole was the 96th of the six-times champion’s career.

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⁍ Neither Ferrari driver made it into the top 10 with Charles Leclerc qualifying 11th and Sebastian Vettel 15th and one place behind Williams’ George Russell.

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– Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes on the pole position for Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix after what he called “one of the worst qualifying sessions” of his career, reports Reuters. The British driver was 15th when the second phase of qualifying was halted after Sebastian Vettel crashed his Ferrari. The clock showed two minutes and 15 seconds to go. Hamilton had to use all his experience to stay in the garage and then complete a quick lap and secure his place in the final top shootout once the pit lane reopened. Job done, going fourth fastest after reaching the line with just over a second to spare and being told to muscle his way through, the pressure dissolved. He proceeded to smash the track record with a blistering lap of one minute 31.304 seconds. Verstappen, who has retired from his last two races, pushed off the front row right at the end with a 1:31.867 effort—still more than half a second slower than Hamilton. “It’s nice being on pole but probably here is the worst place to be on pole, with the draggier cars this year,” said Hamilton. “I’m most likely to get dragged tomorrow.”