Austria Qualifying: Bottas nips it from Hamilton

With everything dialled up, Bottas rose to the occasion with a very strong first flyer in Q3 before going a tad faster with his second run. Hamilton's effort was 0.019 of a second shy of the top time, but enough for the Silver Arrows to annex the front row.

After what was arguably his best qualifying, Bottas was beaming when he told MC Mark Webber afterwards, "The whole weekend we’ve been making good progress with the set-up. We've been working to get the car well balanced with the new bits. We did and the car felt so good."

"I knew in the last run there was still a tenth or so I could improve from the first run, I managed to find it and apparently I needed it," added the race winner.

Ferrari kept their powder dry until FP3 earlier in the day, but when it mattered in qualifying they were short of firepower and Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel had to settle for third, over three tenths down on the pole-winning time followed by Kimi Raikkonen in fourth a couple of tenths down on his teammate to make it an all red second row.

Vettel summed up, "It wasn’t easy to put it together I had a mistake on the first lap so I knew I needed to to put a banker in to make it safe and qualify in a proper position. I think we need to make sure that we improve from where we are."

"I think in qualy, we are little bit behind right now. I think the car should be stronger in the race so it should be a close fight and we have a good chance at the Grand Prix," added Vettel who was penalised three grid places for a impeding incident involving Carlos Sainz during Q2.

Hamilton took the defeat to his teammate on the chin, "Not too bad I'm happy, Valtteri did a stunning lap with the first run and I made a bit of a mistake. I'm happy with the second run, it is a good result for the team."

Max Verstappen, who suffered a gearbox problem late in FP3, recovered to post the fifth fastest time but it was his teammate Daniel Ricciardo who caused a stir when he suggested he was used by his team to aid his teammate.

The Australian, who will start seventh, said immediately after the session, "I'm not too impressed to be honest. We had three runs and I was just punching a hole for everyone. We could have been more fair."

Much was expected of Renault's 'qualy-mode' whose chief Cyril Abiteboul insisted would make a difference. It the extra horsepower was there, it appears that the on-switch was nowhere to be found. In a nutshell, it was pitiful considering what Ferrari and Mercedes unleash on Saturday afternoons.

Driver of the Day must go to Romain Grosjean and Haas, the American team and their drivers found the sweet spot around Formula 1's shortest venue.

Grosjean has had the edge over Kevin Magnussen in Austria and maximised what he had to split the Bulls and claim the sixth spot on the grid, his Danish teammate will line up eigth.

Nico Hulkenberg had never been out-qualified by a teammate at Red Bull Ring until this Saturday when Carlos Sainz edged him by a tenth of a second to claim ninth on the timing screens, with the German tenth.

Interestingly in Q1 the five drivers that dropped out were all from different teams.

McLaren again had a wretched afternoon with Stoffel Vandoorne out in Q1 in 16th and outqualified by teammate Fernando Alonso for the 14the consecutive time. Alarmingly Alonso's best was around a second down on the Red Bulls and half a second shy of the Renault duo.

Williams' Lance Stroll made it into Q2 and will start the race from 15th on a day in which his team enjoyed slightly better fortunes than in recent outings. Sergey Sirotkin was 18th.

At Toro Rosso, Brendon Hartley was again comprehensively outperformed Pierre Gasly, the Frenchman four tenths faster than the New Zealander.

Same thing at Sauber where rookie Charles Leclerc endured a scrappy session but was still good for 13th, while his teammate Marcus Ericsson was slowest of all and half a second down on the Ferrari protege.

Q1 saw Mercedes quickly to the fore with Hamilton and Bottas trading times on ultrasoft tyres before Hamilton settled into P1 with a time of 1:04.080, just under a tenth of a second ahead of his team-mate. Kimi was third ahead of Verstappen on supersoft tyres. Vettel also opened his session with runs on supersoft tyres to sit in fifth place ahead of the final runs with a time of 1:04.347.

In the final runs Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull opted to remains in their garages, which allowed Grosjean to jump ahead of Verstappen and Vettel, and that left the action to focus on the drop zone where Stroll made a last-minute escape, vaulting from P17 to P15 with a lap of 1:05.264. That put him 0.007s ahead of Vandoorne. The Belgian dropped to 16th and out of the session ahead of Perez, Sirotkin, Hartley and Ericsson.

In the second session Mercedes’ drivers went out on supersoft tyres and Bottas became the first man to dip below the 1m04s mark with a lap of 1:03.756 that put him into P1.

He was soon quickly usurped by Hamilton, however, with the championship leader taking P1 with a time of 1:03.577.

This time Ferrari opted to run on ultrasoft tyres and Vettel took P3 ahead of Räikkönen. Verstappen was fifth, also on supersofts, but it was a trickier opening run for team-mate Ricciardo. He was only 11th after his first flier and second run on the red-banded Pirellis. A second lap boosted him to P9 but with just over three-tenths of a second separating him from P11 man Hulkenberg the Australian would need to run again.

He opted for another go on the supersoft tyres and this time he found time, posting a lap of 1:04.403 that was good enough for P8 over four tenths clear of Ocon who was eliminated in P11 ahead of Gasly, Leclerc, Alonso and Stroll.

Leclerc also faces a five-place grid drop for tomorrow’s race following a post-FP3 gearbox change.

At the top of the order, Hamilton was displaced in the final runs by Vettel, who set a time of 1:03.544 on ultrasoft tyres. Second-placed Hamilton was followed by Bottas, Raikkonen and Verstappen. Haas’s good form continued with Grosjean and Magnussen sixth and seventh ahead of Ricciardo and the Renaults of Sainz and Hulkenberg.

In the first runs of Q3 Valtteri claimed provisional pole with a time of 1:03.264 as mistakes from both Hamilton and Vettel compromised their laps. Behind him Hamilton sat second ahead of Räikkönen with hard-charging Grosjean slotting into an impressive fourth for Haas as Vettel languished in seventh behind the Verstappen and Ricciardo.

In the final runs it looked like Hamilton and Vettel would put heavy pressure on Bottas as they both began their runs well, but the Finn was untouchable and he found just enough time to set a time of 1:03.130 to take a second consecutive Austrian Grand Prix pole position 0.019s clear of Hamilton and three tenths up on Vettel.

Räikkönen qualified in fourth place, while Verstappen’s final lap was good enough to push Grosjean to sixth, with Ricciardo seventh. Magnussen was eighth on a good afternoon for Haas, with the Renault’s of Sainz and Hulkenberg in ninth and tenth respectively.