Valtteri Bottas starts of his formula 1 campaign with a pole position at the first Austrian Grand Prix, as his team mate Lewis Hamilton takes a close second.
Though it was expected that Mercedes would dominate qualifying, we were in for some surprises during the qualify such a Norris's P4 and Vettel's shocking knockout in Q2 at P11.
Q1
We would generally expect Williams to be the team that locks out the last row of the grid, but a very good lap from George Russel saw his just +0.73s off making into Q2 at P17 while his rookie team mate Latifi ended up being P20.
Alfa Romeos who have been not great through the practice sessions, their drivers Giovanazi and Raikkonen took p18 and p19 respectively. Kimi Raikkonen said his lap was messy, but I don't think they had the pace to make into Q2
Racing Point and McLaren showed some good pace indicating they will be Q3 contenders while Ferrari's lap time showed that they were struggling for pace. It was also the first session that Lewis did not top the charts as Bottas took P1.
Drivers knocked out of Q1
| P16 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 1:05.164 |
| P17 | George Russell | Williams | 1:05.167 |
| P18 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | 1:05.175 |
| P19 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo | 1:05.224 |
| P20 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 1:05.757 |
Q2
Mercedes were the first cars out of the pits with soft tyres fitted to their cars as Max Verstrappen ventured out on the medium tyre. As cars made their first round of times laps it was clear that Mclaren, Racing Point and Renault had good pace and have very good chance of making into Q3
Max went for another lap to improve on his time to post a 1:14.000 to ensure he has a decent time to make it into Q3 while his teammate Albon had a scruffy lap to post just P13. Ferrari looked out of sorts on their first round of timed laps as they posted times in mid to low 1.14's taking P8 and P10.
As teams went out for their runs during the closing times of Q2 it was clear that Ferrari had to make good gains in order to be above in the pecking order, as each car went by the finish line it was clear that Ferrari were in danger of being. knocked out as they failed to improve their times. Sure enough as Alex Albon crossed the line he pushed Vettel out of top 10
Ocon failed to improve his time resulting him to P14. Had he put in a good time, Leclerc would have been eliminated as well. Leclerc was surprised that he was only P10 after his effort showing a serious lack of pace in the Ferrari car.
Grosjean who made it into Q2 with a very small margin failed to improve his place and stayed at P15 with AlphaTauri duo taking up P12 and P13.
| P11 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:04.206 |
| P12 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 1:04.305 |
| P13 | Daniil Kvyat | AlphaTauri | 1:04.431 |
| P14 | Esteban Ocon | Renault | 1:04.643 |
| p15 | Romain Grosjean | Hass | 1:04.691 |
Q3
Bottas out on his first run put in a track record time of 1:02.939, which Lewis would not be able to beat in his both outings and missed out pole by a mere 0.012s
Lando Norris put in a superb lap to take P4 and Max took P3. Albon and Perez locked out P5 and P6 respectively with identical times.
Rest of the field did not improve on their times as they had yellow flag which was triggered by Bottas's run through the gravel. Ricciardo was disappointed as he had to abort his run and felt he could have been higher than P10.
| P1 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:02.939 |
| P2 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:02.951 |
| P3 | Max Verstappen | RedBull | 1:03.477 |
| P4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 1:03.626 |
| P5 | Alexander Albon | Rebull | 1:03.868 |
| P6 | Sergio Perez | Racing Point | 1:03.868 |
| P7 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:03.923 |
| P8 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | McLaren | 1:03.971 |
| P9 | Lance Stroll | Racing Point | 1:04.029 |
| P10 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | 1:04.239 |
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