Bottas beats Hamilton and Verstappen to F1 Eifel GP pole
Valtteri Bottas beat Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to pole position in qualifying for the Eifel Grand Prix.
Fresh from claiming his second win of the season last time out in Russia, Bottas outpaced world championship leader Hamilton by 0.256s to claim his third pole of the year and end a run of five qualifying defeats on the spin to Hamilton.
Hamilton will have his second opportunity to match Michael Schumacher's all-time record of 91 F1 race victories in Sunday's grand prix.
With the Mercedes pair once again locking out the front row of the grid during F1’s first visit to the Nurburgring in seven years, Verstappen missed the chance to claim Red Bull’s first pole of 2020.
Just over a week after Red Bull’s engine supplier Honda announced it would be pulling out of F1 at the end of next year, Verstappen topped the first qualifying session and was quickest after the first runs of Q3, but ultimately ended up 0.293s adrift.
Charles Leclerc translated his impressive practice pace into qualifying as he snatched fourth place away from Alex Albon by just 0.012s with a late effort to put his Ferrari inbetween the two Red Bull cars.
It was a strong qualifying session for Renault, with Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon just nine-tenths off Bottas’ pole time in sixth and seventh.
Two-tenths further back, Lando Norris was the fastest McLaren driver in eighth, with Sergio Perez putting his Racing Point just 0.005s ahead of Carlos Sainz, who rounded out the top 10.
Sebastian Vettel missed out on a place in Q3 for the seventh consecutive race as he took 11th in his Ferrari, ahead of the AlphaTauri duo Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat.
Antonio Giovinazzi outpaced the lead Haas of Kevin Magnussen as he progressed to Q2 for the first time this season, turning in a much-needed strong display with his F1 future uncertain heading into 2021.
Romain Grosjean failed to make it two Haas cars into Q2 as he missed out by just 0.020s, ahead of George Russell, who maintained his 100 percent qualifying record against his F1 teammates.
The other Williams driven by Nicholas Latifi was two-tenths slower than Russell with Kimi Raikkonen only 19th for Alfa Romeo.
Nico Hulkenberg set the slowest time of all in as he stood in for the unwell Lance Stroll after a last-minute call up saw the German contest qualifying, marking his third F1 weekend appearance of the season for Racing Point.
