Valtteri Bottas takes pole position for season-opening Austrian GP

Valtteri Bottas upstaged his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton with a scorching show to assert pole place forward of the Briton for Sunday’s delayed season-opening Austrian Grand Prix.

The Finnish driver outpaced the six-time champion with a finest lap in qualifying in a single minute and a couple of.939 seconds after which survived an ‘off’ into the gravel and a spin on his ultimate lap to emerge 0.012 seconds away from Hamilton.

It was Bottas’ third pole on the Austrian Grand Prix and the 12th of his profession, a feat that adopted Hamilton’s cleansweep of the three apply classes on Friday and Saturday morning.

“It feels really good – I’ve missed this feeling,” stated Bottas.

“The qualifying shakes! It’s something special when you push the car to the limit and I’ve been waiting for a long time – we seem to be in our own league.”

Hamilton added: “A great job by Valtteri and it’s a great start to the season and I’m happy to be here.

“I think we show year on year that we are the best team – because we are open-minded, keep with the times and nobody is too stubborn to admit they are wrong.”

Max Verstappen was third for Red Bull, half a second adrift of the 2 newly-painted ‘black arrows’ vehicles whose dominating efficiency delivered a 65th entrance row lock out for the staff, equalling Ferrari’s document.

“I’m happy to be P3,” stated Verstappen. “But we have a different tyre so it’s going to be interesting.”

Lando Norris was a formidable fourth for McLaren forward of Alex Albon within the second Red Bull and Sergio Perez, who was sixth in Racing Point’s ‘pink Mercedes’.

Charles Leclerc was a disillusioned seventh for Ferrari forward of his future team-mate Carlos Sainz within the second McLaren, Lance Stroll within the second Racing Point and Daniel Ricciardo of Renault.

The Austrian race is the opening occasion of the 2020 season after the standard season-opener in Australia was cancelled in March earlier than the worldwide lockdown over the COVID-19 disaster.