Bottas pips Vettel to pole for Austrian Grand Prix

Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas will start the Austrian Grand Prix from pole position. It's the Finn's second career pole after taking the top spot for the first time in Bahrain earlier this year.

Bottas's pole time was 1:04.251s. He will be joined on the front row of the grid for tomorrow's race by Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who was a narrow 0.042s behind.

Lewis Hamilton was third fastest in the final round of qualifying. However, his five place grid penalty for a new gearbox means he will start from eighth place on the grid.

That puts him behind Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo on the second row. Ricciardo's team mate Max Verstappen will be alongside Haas' Romain Grosjean on row three.

Verstappen ran off the track in turn 7 at the end of Q3 and was lucky to keep it out of the barrier. Along with Haas' Romain Grosjean having stopped on track in sector two, it meant that no one was able to put in a final flier because of local waved yellows.

Force India's Sergio Perez will start in seventh place alongside Hamilton, with his team mate Esteban Ocon lining up in ninth place alongside Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz.

Hamilton had taken the honours in the first round of qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix. His time of 1:05.064s on the ultrasofts had been a tenth faster than Raikkonen. Vettel was a distant third fastest, having stuck to the supersoft compound. A late flyer put Sainz into fourth ahead of Bottas who just held off the two Red Bulls.

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Grosjean was eighth in Q1 despite running off at turn 6 early in the session. His Haas team mate Kevin Magnussen also made it through, but he wrecked his left rear suspension on the aggressive kerbing in the process. Eliminated at the end of Q1 were Renault's Jolyon Palmer, the two Williams of Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll, and the two Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein.

Bottas set the pace in Q2 with an impressive time of 1:04.316s, almost half a second faster than Vettel. Hamilton was just a few hundredths slower despite being the only driver on supersofts in the session - the set he will now start the race on. Verstappen pipped Raikkonen to fourth, with Ricciardo in sixth narrowly ahead of another impressive run from Grosjean.

With Magnussen ruled out of the second round with damage, only four drivers faced the cut in Q2. Renault's Nico Hulkenberg, McLaren team mates Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, and Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat all joined the Dane watching the final top ten pole shootout from pit lane.

Austrian Grand Prix - Qualifying results

 
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