The seven-time world champion was just 0.036s faster than Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as F1’s two heavyweights of 2021 on🌺ce again went head-to-head in an exhilarating qualifying session in Barcelona. 

Hamilton had to draw on all his skill as he produced an𓆉other one of his trademark stellar𒁃 laps that have ultimately enabled him to hit an unprecedented milestone of 100 poles in F1. 

He was made to work incredibly hard for his second pole of the season due ꦚto the blistering pace Verstappen was able to unleash from his ▨RB16B, having topped final practice and sat half a second clear of the field in Q2. 

Despite not leading a single session on Saturday pri💦or to Q3, Hamilton hit back when it mattered most to trump Verstappen, having opted for a set-up 🥀“gamble” that left the Briton heading into qualifying with “anxiety”. 

“I think we've been strong all weekend and I made some change🐻s,” Ham🍸ilton said. 

"I had a bit of anxiety about the changes that we were potentially going to make for qualifying൩𓂃. You are always trying to make the car better, but it's a bit of a gamble because you've also got to keep the race in mind also.

"Anyway, we made 𝔉the change and as soon as I got out 🙈I was like, 'this is the wrong one’.”

Click here for full Spanish GP qualifying results 

Hamilton explainedꦰ that he immediately doubted the changes he had requested when it made his W12 car ♑“lazy” and gave him “so much understeer”. 

However, a combination of some small adjustments and his “cleanest” lap of the weekend ended up making th꧂e difference to give Hamilton his fourth pole in the last five years in Spain.

"It was༒ my call in the end, but it was really hard, so that's why I was behind the whole way through qualifying, and I was making small tweaks here and there to try and elevate pace-wise,” he added. 

"The first lap [in Q3] was the best lap that I go🍬t through the whole session, which was great. I tried to improve the next lap, I think I was a tenth-and-a-half up, but then I couldn't keep it.”

How Hamilton handled the situation impressed Me💖rcedes boss Toto Wolff, who said his driver was “very calm” as the team diligently attended to his requests. 

“He very much quickly said, ‘I think we went in the wrong directi𒈔on’, and you could see it on the lap times, and then they were tweaking around with the diff and whatever they could,” Wol🐽ff explained. 

“He was limited with the tools that he had available and the engineers had available to really put the c💦ar in a happier place, but somehow what they did was good enough for pole.”

Wolff said 🦩that Hamilton’s “exceptional” performances were now his regular standard in F1 after he chalked up his 97th victory at the Portuguese Grand Prix, and the Austrian stood by that assessment having witnes🔥sed Hamilton further stretch out his record pole tally. 

“Every time I get asked the question about whether it was his best lap, best race, he's just operati🦩ng on this extremely u🐈nseen, never seen level,” he said. 

“And today again, probably the car wasn't perfect and he just edged the other𒀰 ones out and the h🎐undred poles is incredible. 

"Andrew Shovlin [Merc꧃edes trackside engineering director] was just saღying that if you put all his pole laps together in a video, it would last two hours. So that just shows what he has achieved.”

It marked the latest sensational qualifying la🐷p that Hamilton has delivered throughout his career. His stunning effort at the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix is still regarded to thiꦉs day as one of the sport’s greatest-ever pole laps. 

Asked whether his latest pole felt worthy of being the one that made h🐭im the inaugural member of F1’s centurion club, Hamilton replied: “I ൲think it was a great lap, and I think it’s the journey. 

“Sometimes you start qualifying and you are quick from🍸 the get-go, youไ’ve got the right balance and then it’s really just down to doing the best job. 

“[Here] I didn’t really have the right balance and I was behind. No mꦉatter the changes I was making I was still slightly behind, still slightly behind, still not quite there. 

“So I was making these change𝓰s and hoping by Q3, this was all I got,ꦍ so I had to make the best of it.

“I do feel like it was a very, very clean and precise lap. And I guess that’s why I managed to beℱ just ahead of Max. I’m proud of it, that’s for sure.” 

Perhaps the only blemish on Hamilton’s achievement was a scruffy first two segments of qualifyi𝐆ng that means he will start the race on a scrubbed set of Soft tyres. That could hand his rivals a small advantage on the 600-metre run down to Turn 1. 

“There’s no real logic to it, it’s simply that I didn’t do a good enough job in Q☂1 on the Medium tyre,” said Hamilton, who is going for a fifth successive Spanish Grand Prix vi🍸ctory on Sunday. 

“They said I was on the edge so I had to go out on the Soft tyre which I wasn’t planning to do. I think we did an outꦡ-lap and came in. 

“And then we started on a new tyre for the first run [in Q2] and then went onto 🐎the one-lapped scrubbed second tyre and it was quicker so 🐲I just finished the lap and that’s the tyre I’m on. 

“It's basically got a lap m🥂ore than everyone else.🅘”