#EifelGP Qualifying Report: @ValtteriBottas beats @LewisHamilton to pole. #F1

Valtteri Bottas beat Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to pole position in qualifying at the Eifel GP while Racing Point’s substitute for the ill Lance Stroll, Nico Hulkenberg qualified 20th.

The Silver Arrows maintained it’s 100% qualifying record in the 2020 season so far, but faced intense competition from closest rival from Aston Martin Red Bull Racing in Max Verstappen, who topped the time-sheets in Q1 and was just narrowly off Hamilton’s benchmark in the second qualifying segment.

Verstappen lead the way in the initial Q3 flyers, but Bottas and Hamilton fired their F1 W11 EQ Power+ racers on their final hot-laps.

Bottas wound up with the fastest middle sector on his last flyer, posting a 1:25.269, which put the Finn clear by 0.256 as he relegated Hamilton down to second, with the Briton ending the session with the quickest sector three effort.

Verstappen started his last hot-lap with the fastest sector one time, but slowly faded throughout the lap and ended up 0.293 seconds adrift of Bottas’ Eifel GP pole benchmark.

Both Verstappen and Hamilton were slower in the final qualifying stage compared to their Q2 effort.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc qualified fourth and in-front of second Red Bull of Alexander Albon who rounded out the top five.

All the top ten drivers will start the Eifel Grand Prix on the C4 soft compounds despite the Mercedes and Ferrari pairings, and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo, taking a gamble with the C3 yellow-marked mediums in the middle segment.

Ricciardo was sixth and ahead of Renault team-mate Esteban Ocon who qualified seventh and McLaren’s Lando Norris eighth.

BWT Racing Point’s Sergio Perez took ninth with the other McLaren MCL35 of Carlos Sainz completing the top ten.

Leclerc’s late improvement, which propelled the Monegasque-youngster to fifth quickest on the time-sheets, eliminated Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who set a personal best effort on his final flying lap in Q2 but ended up 11th.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat also made improvements on their final hot-laps, but were both 12th and 13th respectively, while a final push from Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi grabbed 14th place and in-front of Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who qualified 15th.

In the first qualifying stage, Hulkenberg, who was due to travel to the Nurburgring for German broadcaster RTL, before his late call-up from Racing Point to replace the ill Stroll ahead of Q1, went out early to learn the 5.148km circuit in the Canadian’s RP20 racer.

The German ran several laps on the softer tyres as soon as the session went green and spent the majority of the session at the rear of the time-sheets, although he momentarily made it up to 19th ahead of the final flyers in Q1.

Hulkenberg’s final effort saw a deep moment at turn one and small lock-ups on both the right and left-fronts at turn six and on the rundown to the final chicane.

He posted a personal best but lost time in sector three and ended up at the rear, 0.204 seconds adrift of Alfa Romeo Racing’s 19th-placed Kimi Raikkonen.

Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean chance of a Q2 appearance was hindered after his best effort of a 1:27.118 seconds was invalidated for exceeding track limits at the fourth corner in the shadow of the Mercedes grandstand that overlooks the corner and turn one.

The Frenchman was able to post another time in the final stages but was dropped down and eliminated, ahead of Williams Racing duo George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, who qualified 17th and 18th respectively.

The Top Three

Pole Position – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“The lap was really nice, really enjoyed it. Of course I can take the win, that’s what I’m here for.”

2nd – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“He did a great job, congrats to him. It’s an amazing track, but the graining, the conditions being so cool, how long the tyres will go, whether or not there’ll be Safety Cars – there’s a lot to play for tomorrow so I need to keep my head down.”

3rd – Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16:

“It was an interesting qualifying, overall decent but in Q3 when it really mattered I started understeering and graining the front tyres which cost me the lap time. We are getting closer to Mercedes, which is positive.”

You can see the full Formula 1 Aramco Grosser Preis Der Eifel 2020 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1055/germany/qualifying.html

In the earlier FP3 session, it was Bottas on-top of the time-sheets ahead of team-mate Hamilton, Leclerc taking third with Verstappen fourth and Vettel completing the top five.

You can catch up on the Free Practice 3 Highlights here at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7xdg1_sl4

Fog causes #F1 #EifelGP Free Practice 1 session cancellation.

#Formula1 Aramco Grosser Preis Der Eifel 2020 Preview. #F1 #EifelGP