Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel put their championship rivalry to one side on Saturday by joining forces in taking aim at Formula One’s “comical” move to slow them down next season.

Hamilton, 33, holds a four-point title lead over Vettel heading into Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix and will be the favourite to extend that margin after edging out his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas in qualifying. Ferrari driver Vettel will line up in third.

Hamilton claimed his first pole position since the opening round of the season in Melbourne with a record-breaking lap of the Circuit de Catalunya on the outskirts of Barcelona.

But Hamilton et al are set to be reined in next year following a decision by F1’s rulers to make the cars simpler, with less emphasis on aerodynamics, in the aid of improving overtaking.

It is estimated that the cars will be 1.5 seconds slower in 2019.

The move for change by Ross Brawn – the British engineer now running the sporting side of F1 under Liberty Media’s governance –  comes a little more than a season after a raft of new regulations were introduced in order to have faster cars and place a greater physical demand on the drivers.

This season has widely been acclaimed as one of the most intriguing, and unpredictable in recent times, with three different winners from the opening four rubbers.

“We always want to go faster, improve the technology, push the boundaries and the limits,” Hamilton said in the minutes after claiming the 74th pole of his career, and his third in as many races in Spain. His pole lap was also three seconds quicker than at this venue last season.

“We should be at least as fast as we have been this year. At the moment, we are making the racing better.”

Vettel, sitting to Hamilton’s left in the post-qualifying press conference, went further than his rival.

“I find it comical,” Vettel said. “In 2009, the sport said ‘let’s go with less aerodynamics and better racing’, but it didn’t change too much.

“Then the sport said the cars are too slow, so let’s put more aerodynamic bits on the cars and make them wider and more spectacular. The feedback from all of the drivers was positive. It is now more challenging and you see us more exhausted after the race.

“Now we want to make them slower again? It is a bit like cruising to America, and changing direction 100 times.

“We should be asked what we need to overtake. We don’t know anything about engineering the car but we know how it feels and the limitations to overtake, but we are never asked.”

The press conference was hastily brought to an end by the Head of Communications for F1’s governing body, the FIA, with Hamilton and Vettel continuing to express their angst as they walked away.

Hamilton’s pole bucks a trend of Ferrari’s one-lap dominance this season with Vettel having secured a hat-trick of starts from the front slot on the grid.

Indeed Hamilton and Bottas’ qualifying one-two marked Mercedes’ first front-row lockout of the year.

“The team have been working so hard,” Hamilton added. “It’s easy for us adults to get stuck in our ways, but they have definitely let loose, and stayed open-minded to think of new ways to try to improve, which is great, and that’s what it takes to be a winning team.”

Kimi Raikkonen will be fourth on the grid for Ferrari ahead of the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo.

Fernando Alonso will start from eighth in McLaren’s best qualifying display of the year.