Valtteri Bottas on pole in Austria, Ferrari in the tough

Si Mercedes suffered last year in Austria, the single-seaters now clad in a black livery seem to have found the right formula to deal with the Red Bull Ring, with a first line composed of Valtteri Bottas et Lewis Hamilton at the end of qualifying this Saturday afternoon.

After achieving his best lap of Q2 on medium tires, offering him a strategy opposed to all of his competitors, Max Verstappen (Red Bull) hoped to offer a first pole position to his team on his home track.

But the Mercedes W11 ultimately left the Dutch driver no chance, with Bottas takes pole on his first attempt in 1’02”939, new track record. A time which will not be beaten subsequently, the Finn also making a mistake at turn 4 on his second run.

“Yes guys! Thanks! »@ValtteriBottas runs wide on his final lap but takes pole in Austria! #AustrianGP  #F1 pic.twitter.com/xoHYERUbPP

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 4, 2020

Dominant this morning in EL3, Lewis Hamilton failed 12 thousandths behind his teammate and preceded Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, author of a superb qualification with his McLaren MCL35.

Alex Albon ranks 5th with the second Red Bull ahead of the Racing Point RP20 of Sergio Pérez. Charles Leclerc cannot do better than 7th with the best Ferrari SF1000 and above Carlos Sainz (McLaren), Lance stroll (Racing Point) and Daniel Ricciardo (Renault).

Hag stall in Q2

The main surprise comes from the elimination in Q2 of Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari). The quadruple world champion, who is competing in his last campaign in red, could not do better than 11th place this Saturday afternoon, confirming the overall lack of performance of the SF1000 against the Mercedes and Red Bulls, the usual rivals of the Scuderia.

Too much understeer, an error in the last corner in his final attempt and a successful last lap for Alex Albon (Red Bull) ruined the hopes of the German, who precedes Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat (Alpha Tauri), Esteban Ocon (Renault) and Romain Grosjean (Haas), the latter ranking from 12th to 15th place on the grid.

Eliminated from Q1 by 7 hundredths, Kevin Magnussen (Haas) will start 16th ahead of George Russell (Williams), which allows itself to get ahead of the two single-seaters Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi, author of a deviation from the trajectory and a passage into the gravel at turn n°4 and of Kimi Räikkönen. Nicholas latifi (Williams) brings up the rear, a good distance from his teammate Russell.

The Austrian Grand Prix will be followed live from tomorrow at 15:10 p.m. via our live text.