It was no party (mode), no problem for Mercedes as the reign✱ing world champio꧙ns obliterated its rivals in Italian Grand Prix qualifying despite a ban on Formula 1 engine ‘party modes’.

Lewis Hamilton beat teammate Valtteri Bottas by just 0.069s to top qualifying for the 94th time in his career and put himself in pole positi🔥on to score his 90th grand prix victory on Sunday as Mercedes swept to a dominant front-row lockout at Mo💞nza.

All t🍃he talk heading into the weekend was whether the FIA’s ban on changing engine modes through qualifying and the race would have any bearing on the competitive order.

Rivals hoped that the technical directive issued for this weekend would rein in some of Mercedes’ one-lap pace advantage🐬 which it has boasted thanks to the use of their high-power settings, but it made no apparent difference on Saturday.

Carlos Sainz claimed a brilliant third on the grid f🅠or McLaren, although the Spaniard finished a distant eight-tenths do🐻wn on Hamilton’s pole time.

Interestingly, Mercedes’ main challenger in qualifying so far th💃is year, Red Bull, was off the pace as Max Verstappen could only qualify fifth. Red Bull had been one of the teams lobbying to push the engine restrictions through, something which Hamilton said he found “amusin♒g” prior to the weekend.

It prompted a cheeky ꧃swipe from Bottas, who said after qualifying that he was not sure how happy Red Bull would n꧙ow be with the outcome of the ban on the use of ‘quali modes’.

"With the engine regulation change for ♎the modes, it's going to be even better for us in the race than before,” Bottas said. “Hopefully it will be good.

"I'm not suꦇre how happy Red Bull iܫs now with this engine change.”

Hamilton, who coined the term ‘party mode’ at the 2018 Australian Grand Prix, jokingly added: "I don’t even think we had a party ꦺmode. That’s s꧋omething someone else made up. Who knows if we even used that mode in Spa?”

Mercedes did use the qualifying mode in Belgium, team boss Toto Wolff confirmed, though it has not done 🀅so at all of the six races that came before Spa.

Wolff believes havi♏ng a “darwinistic principle to confront every possible situation that comes up” has ultimately served Mercedes well.

The German manufacturer had been preparing for the regulationജ change ever since i🌃t was first tabled in mid-August by shifting its development towards finding a solution to the FIA’s clampdown before it was even issued.

It is that level of work e✤thic and foresight which underlines w🐽hy Mercedes remains at the top of its game.

“Once we knew that th𓆏is was coming we said: ‘OK let’s use this as an oppꦏortunity’” Wolff explained.

“I think we have a great organisation and the mentality in Brixworth was great and they said: ‘Let’s bring it on, let’s come up with a strong mode for qualifying that we🅘 can run all race’.

“Overall we have lost very little qualifying performance but have gained a 🥃lot of performance for the race.

“We can run the engine much harder in the race, an𓆉d we were only able to achieve that with a lot of research and a lot of bench runni꧒ng.

“Today we’ve seen for the first ♉time how the level of performance has changed between the teams and there are some interesting outcomes,” he added.

“I think mayb🎀e the ones that pushed the hardest didn’t show great performance today, but ꦑthe biggest advantage we have focused on is to gain race time and that happens tomorrow. But you don’t want to praise the day before the evening.

“We are pusಌhing the boundaries and therefore we’ve had a realꩵly good Saturday and I’m very pleased for the team. Now we need to do well on Sunday.”

After its ominous showing on Saturday, Mercedes may well be in an even stronger 𝔉position come Sunday’s race…

Disaster for Ferrari

Ferrari had expected to endure another bad weekend after failing to score points at✱ the Belgian Grand Prix last time out, and for th🐠e second race in a row its drivers failed to reach Q3.

Sebastian Vettel was the headline driver to be eliminated in the first segment of qualifying after seeing his final flying la▨p compromised when he got caught up in traffic late on and could not impr🍰ove – leaving him a lowly 17th.

Things were little better in the other scarlet red car driven by Charles Leclerc, who admitted his lap fꦗor 13th was🍌 the “best I could do” with a performance that was a stark contrast from Ferrari’s crushing display on home soil at last year’s race.

It marks the first time since 1984 that there are no Ferraris🔜 in the top 10 on the grid of the Italian Grand Prix.

Leclerc said his🍨 team’s struggles “hurt even more” at Monza.

"At the end we expected it a little bit coming into t🤡hi🐷s weekend," Leclerc told Sky Sports F1.

"We know that Spa and here are probably the two worst tracks for us, with another one probably a bit later in the year🥃. It's like this, it's tough, because once you do a good lap and you do P13, it doesn't feel good.

"For now it's like this, and I need to extract the maxi🦩mum out of the car in the situation we are in🌜, and that's what I try to do.

"Surely, it hurts even more once it's at home. It's a reality at the moment for uღs unfortunately.

"We need to work, and hopefully for Mugello, which is still h꧟ome for Ferrari, we'll be a bit better."