Hamilton takes pole despite Mercedes errors

Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix despite both he and Nico Rosberg going off on their final laps in qualifying.

With Hamilton already on provisional pole, the championship lead spun off at Turn 1 on his final attempt, opening the door for Rosberg who was up through the middle sector. However, Rosberg then made a mistake at the final corner and slid off in to the gravel, meaning the two remained unable to improve on their first times.

The result means Mercedes has taken every pole position in the last 12 months, a record last boasted by Williams across the 1992/93 seasons. Sebastian Vettel will start third for Ferrari having been 0.3s off the pace despite topping two of the three practice sessions this weekend. Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, however, had a poor session as he dropped out in Q1.

Felipe Massa will line up alongside Vettel on row two, with Nico Hulkenberg impressing to qualify fifth for Force India. The Le Mans 24 Hours winner split the two Williams cars, who never looked like threatening a repeat of their one-two in qualifying from 2014.

Max Verstappen starts seventh for Toro Rosso outqualifying Daniil Kvyat - who has a 10-place grid penalty to come - Felipe Nasr and Romain Grosjean.

Q2 saw five different teams lose a driver from the session, with Pastor Maldonado, Marcus Ericsson, Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo all failing to follow their team-mates in to the final part of qualifying.

Fernando Alonso also dropped out in 15th place, and with a 25-place grid penalty set to be imposed after qualifying, the remaining unused penalty gives him a best case scenario of receiving a drive-through in the race.

Following heavy rain during the end of FP3, the track was drying throughout Q1 and saw times tumbling the longer the session progressed. Raikkonen was in trouble but thought a late lap had done enough to put him through and backed off with 40s remaining, only to quickly tumble from 9th place to 18th and elimination.

Jenson Button out qualified Raikkonen but still failed to get through and will be hit with a major in-race penalty having also already had a 25-place grid penalty hanging over him. With Button set to have more than 20 places untaken, that will be converted in to a 10-second stop and go penalty on Sunday.

Sergio Perez was the last driver to miss out in P16, with the Force India driver delivering a disappointing performance as team-mate Nico Hulkenberg was sixth in the same session. Perez ultimately missed out on a spot in Q2 by just 0.014s.

Only the two Manor cars were slower than Raikkonen in the opening part of qualifying, with the Finn being told over team radio: "We've been bumped".

Raikkonen: "What?"

Engineer: "We're P17."

Raikkonen: "How the f**k is that possible?"

Click here for the gallery of the Formula Una girls at the Austrian Grand Prix

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