F1: Bottas Takes Pole As Ferrari Left Starstruck In Spielberg

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Brandon Dawe
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Valtteri Bottas alongside Lewis Hamilton after taking his twelfth career pole in Austria. Image sourced from @MercedesAMGF1 via Twitter.

Valtteri Bottas On Pole For Tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix.

The Flying Finn

Bottas clinched a narrow pole ahead of Mercedes’ team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who finished just 0.012’s of a second adrift.

However it wasn’t all plain sailing as the Finn took a trip through the grass/gravel on his final run.

Bottas: “I missed this feeling after qualifying… the shakes… after pushing the car to the limit.”

“A good result today, but it’s tomorrow that matters. ”

Red Bull Come Up Short

Max Verstappen who was touted to take the fight to Mercedes this weekend finshed a somber half a second down on the newly painted W11’s.

Fortunately for the British outfit there is a silver lining as Verstappen’s Q2 lap on the medium tyres means he will start tomorrow on the preferred race compound.

Max Verstappen storming through the former Österreichring in the Styrian Hills. Image sourced from @RedBullRacing via Twitter.

Verstappen: “I’m happy to be P3, we have different starting tyres, so it’s going to be interesting.”

“We’ll try to make it as difficult as possible for them.”

On the other side of the garage Thai driver Alexander Albon will start tomorrow’s grand prix from fifth position.

Norris Storms To Fourth

McLaren’s Lando Norris set a superb final lap to put his MCL34 on the second row, just over a tenth shy of Verstappen in third.

Ferrari Left Speechless

The Scuderia had a huge wake up call in Austria as the Maranello squad struggled even more than they feared coming into the weekend.

Sebastian Vettel who is set to leave the team at end of the year was shockingly knocked out in Q2.

Vettel: “Of course it’s a surprise, we thought we had a little bit more in hand but it looks like the others were probably running a bit more conservative in practice.”

His team-mate Charles Leclerc on the other hand did make it through to the final part of qualifying.

However Leclerc could only manage seventh as Racing Points Sergio Perez took sixth from the Monegasque.

Ferrari have said they will hope to put an end to the teams struggles with an upgrade scheduled for Round 3 in Hungary in just under two weeks.

McLaren’s Carlos Sainz who’s final run was tainted by a yellow flag in the closing stages finshed eighth.

Behind was Lance Stroll in ninth with Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top ten for Renault.

Daniel Riccardo leading team-mate Esteban Ocon during Spielberg qualifying. Image sourced from @RenaultF1Team via Twitter.

The Alpha Tauris of Pierre Gasly & Daniil Kvyat who had a quiet session, will line up in twelfth and thirteenth respectively.

Esteban Ocon’s ended his first qualifying for Renault in fourteenth.

In fifteenth is Romain Grosjean in the Haas who outpaced his teammate Kevin Magnussen in sixteenth.

Williams Resurface

George Russell lead a Williams resurgence as the young Brit qualified in a career best seventeenth place.

Williams’ George Russell on his way to a career best seventeenth in qualifying. Image sourced from @WilliamsRacing via Twitter.

Russell ending the session just less than a tenth off Q2 as the FW43 shaved nearly a second off its predecessors 2019 time.

Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi won his battle with veteran team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

They will both line up in eighteenth and nineteenth, ahead of 2020’s only rookie driver in Nicholas Latifi who finished over half a second back in last for Williams.

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