Valtteri Bottas beats Lewis Hamilton to Austrian Grand Prix pole
- Published
- comments
The Austrian Grand Prix is live on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra and BBC Sport website this weekend
Valtteri Bottas beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position as Mercedes dominated qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix, while Ferrari had a shocking day.
Mercedes seemed unbeatable as the season re-started after a four-month delay as a result of the coronavirus.
The cars, painted black this year to reflect Mercedes' support for anti-racism, were half a second clear.
The fastest Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was in seventh as the sheer scale of their lack of performance became clear.
Team-mate Sebastian Vettel did not even make it into the final part of qualifying and the four-time world champion will start 11th.
It was a toss-up as to which was the biggest shock - the size of Mercedes' advantage over everyone else, or how badly wrong Ferrari have got it with this year's car.
As attention turns to the race on Sunday, there will be a question as to whether anyone can challenge Mercedes, and also a focus on F1's stance against racism, in the wake of the focus on the issue created by protests around the world.
The drivers are to make a collective statement before the race by wearing "end racism" T-shirts, although there remains a question as to whether all of them will take a knee.
Wow, that Mercedes is quick
Mercedes have dominated the weekend, the cars quickest by a significant margin in every single session.
The Finn was quicker than Hamilton on the first runs by 0.122 seconds and then, running ahead of the Briton, went off at Turn Five on his final run.
Hamilton was ahead of Bottas on split times at that point. The world champion improved his time over the rest of the lap but lost out on pole position by 0.012secs.
Bottas said: "It feels really good. I have missed this feeling after qualifying, the shakes. It is something special when you push the car to the limit. It feels so good. Our team, amazing job - we seem to be in our own league."
Hamilton said that the incident with Bottas "didn't really affect the lap", adding: "Great job by Valtteri. This is a great job by the team and I am happy to be here."
Ah, yes. That guy: Bottas claimed his 12th career pole position. Source: Forix
Verstappen in third was 0.538secs off pole. The Dutchman will start the race on a different tyre than Mercedes, having chosen to run the medium in second qualifying, while Mercedes were on the soft, but on the face of it the world champions look to be unbeatable.
Verstappen said: "It is going to be quite a bit warmer tomorrow and that could play to our advantage, Mercedes were on a different level today but let's see what we can do tomorrow.
"I suspect we are a little bit better off in the race. We have nothing to lose so I will try to make it as difficult as possible for them."
Hamilton was investigated after qualifying for ignoring yellow flags waved for the Bottas incident and for going off track on his first lap.
No further action was taken with regard to flags because there were conflicting green light signals showing at the same time. His first lap time was deleted for going off track at Turn 10, but it made no difference to his grid position because his second lap was his fastest anyway.
As attention turns to the race on Sunday, there will be a question as to whether anyone can challenge Mercedes, and also a focus on F1's stance against racism, in the wake of the focus on the issue created by protests around the world.
The drivers are to make a collective statement before the race by wearing "end racism" t-shirts, although there remains a question as to whether all of them will take a knee.
F1 Breakdown: Jack Nicholls previews new Formula 1 season
Ferrari in the doledrums
Even before arriving in Austria, Ferrari were downplaying expectations, saying that they had had to redesign their car after discovering problems following pre-season testing and that the first parts of that change would not appear until the Hungarian Grand Prix in two weeks' time.
But few expected them to be as far off the pace as they were.
Both drivers were in danger of being knocked out at the end of second qualifying but Leclerc managed to scrape through in 10th place.
Even he seemed surprised to be so slow.
"Are we safe?" the 22-year-old asked his engineer at the end of the second session.
"Yes," he was told. "You are P10."
"That's crazy," Leclerc replied.
In the end, Leclerc managed to make it into seventh on the grid by pulling out all the stops in the final session but the inquiry will be long and questing.
Rival teams pointed out that whereas at last year's Austrian Grand Prix there were five cars with Ferrari engines in the top 10, while this year only one made it through - and that all those teams had lost more than 0.5secs a lap in performance compared to 2019.
There was a controversial settlement between governing body the FIA and Ferrari over the winter, with the FIA saying that they had doubts about the legality of the Ferrari engine in 2019 but could not prove them.
Rivals were angered that the details of the settlement were kept confidential.
Norris stars for McLaren
P4 is Norris' highest-ever qualifying position
The Racing Point - or 'Pink Mercedes' as it has become known for its likeness to last year's Silver Arrow - had looked best of the rest behind Mercedes and Red Bull on Friday but McLaren pipped them thanks to a stellar performance from Lando Norris.
The Briton qualified a brilliant fourth, less than 0.2secs behind Verstappen and ahead of the second Red Bull of Alex Albon.
Albon set the same time as Racing Point's Sergio Perez, but as the Anglo-Thai set it first, he will start ahead of the Mexican.
Behind Leclerc, the second McLaren of Carlos Sainz was eighth, ahead of Perez's team-mate Lance Stroll and the lead Renault of Daniel Ricciardo.
Bad day for Williams: Nicholas Latifi crashed out during final practice
Leclerc said Ferrari "have to stay positive" following a difficult qualifying session
Drivers and staff have been wearing face masks across the weekend at all times
Radio 1's Movie Mixtapes: Ali Plumb delivers top tracks from legendary films
Grounded with Louis Theroux: Comedian and actor Chris O'Dowd joins from LA to chat to Louis
