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Hamilton shows his class to clinch first Japan pole

Suzuka - The Briton leads Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel by 34 points with five races left

Lewis Hamilton stamped his authority at the Suzuka circuit, securing the 71st pole position of his career with a record breaking lap of 1 minute 27.319 seconds to seal the top spot for the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Briton's record lap is 1.575 seconds faster than Michael Schumacher's fastest lap in qualifying around Suzuka in 2006, which was clocked 1 minute 28.954 seconds. With breaking records becoming a habit for this three-time world champion this season, the current pole position is his first ever at the Suzuka circuit.
Following Hamilton, was Valterri Bottas, with a time 0.332 seconds slower than the pole-sitter. Although the Finn qualifies P2, he has a five place grid penalty for a gearbox change, which places him at P7 on the starting grid for the race. His demotion catapults Sebastian Vettel to P2 on the starting grid, although he qualified with the third fastest time of the qualifying session, with a time of 1 minute 27.791 seconds.
Qualifying fourth fastest was Daniel Ricciardo followed by his team-mate Max Vertsappen with the fastest time. Nevertheless, Bottas' penalties mean the Red Bull Racing team drivers will now start the race with a second row lockout, with the Australian at P3 and the Dutchman placed at P4 on the grid.
The sixth fastest driver was Kimi Raikkonen, but he too takes penalties for a changed gearbox like his Mercedes Finn counterpart after damage from an accident in the third free practice session, pushing him further down the grid. Raikkonen's demotion places the two Force India's on the third row of the grid, with Esteban Ocon placed at P5 and Sergio Perez placed at P6. The two Force India's classified seventh fastest and eighth fastest on the time-sheets with the Frenchman being faster than the Mexican. Williams Felipe Massa clocked the ninth fastest time of the Q3 session followed by former Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso who clocked the tenth fastest time. With the drivers ahead of the Brazilian penalised, he will start at P8 on the grid behind Bottas. Nonetheless, the McLaren double world champion has been penalised with a 35-place grid penalty for changing an engine and various components, which will place him right at the end of the grid in P20 on a circuit which is a home race for Honda.
 
Alonso's demotion plays to the advantage of his team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne, who missed Q2 by a tenth of a second and qualified with the eleventh fastest time. The Belgian driver will start P9 behind Massa and ahead of Raikkonen who gets promoted from P11 to P10, to complete the top half of the grid.
A little incident on the track involving Lance Stroll and Perez has caused an investigation where both have been alleged of impeding each other from the turns 16 to 18 of the circuit. If Perez is penalised that would push him down to P9 on the grid, shuffling the top 10 again. On that account, the final grid before the race between P5-P10 will have another shuffle coming in by Sunday morning.