#F170 #Qualifying Report: @ValtteriBottas pips @LewisHamilton to pole. #F1

Valtteri Bottas beat Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to take his 13th-career pole position for the F170 Grand Prix in qualifying at Silverstone.

The C4 softer compounds available for this weekend lead to an unusual qualifying session, with all top ten drivers making it through to the final segment on the C3 yellow side-walled medium rubber, apart from Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen – who will start the race on the C2 hard tyres.

Mercedes also opted to switch the compounds on their F1 W11 EQ Power+ racers at the halfway point of Q3, after Hamilton lead the way on the initial hot laps, posting a 1:25.284 on the soft rubber.

But once the leaders switched back to the medium rubber for their final flying laps, Bottas turned the tables and pipped Hamilton by 0.080 seconds.

Although Hamilton ended the third qualifying stage with the quickest first and third sectors – and neither Mercedes drivers posted the fastest time in sector one on their last laps – Bottas’ purple middle sector gave the Finn the advantage over the Briton as he claimed his 13th-career pole at the F170 GP and the first since the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix.

Hulkenberg clinched third after an impressive final flyer and qualified ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen.

Verstappen did the opposite to the Mercedes duo and swapped the softs for mediums for his last hot lap in Q3 and the Dutchman improved on his effort but was not enough to snatch third from Hulkenberg.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo held third in the initial Q3 running as the Australian completed the final qualifying stage in it’s entirety on the medium tyres, but did not improve on his last flyer and was relegated to fifth.

The other Mercedes-powered RP20 Racing Point of Lance Stroll was sixth and ahead of Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who qualified seventh and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ended qualifying in eighth.

The second Red Bull of Alexander Albon took ninth and in-front of McLaren’s Lando Norris who completed the top ten.

Renault’s Esteban Ocon qualified outside the top ten runners in 11th place despite improving on his final hot-lap in Q2, but the Frenchman has received a three-placed grid penalty for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix following a post-qualifying investigation from the stewards for impeding Williams Racing’s George Russell’s lap as they made their way onto the Wellington Straight at the halfway point of the first qualifying stage. Ocon will now start 14th.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel used the less-popular tyre compound for the weekend, the softer tyre in an attempt to make into Q3, but the German ended up 12th reporting over the team radio: “that was all there was in this car”.

McLaren’s Carlos Sainz was another driver who improved but failed to make it into the final qualifying segment, qualifying 13th – the first time a McLaren driver was unable to progress through to Q3 in the 2020 season.

Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean wound-up 14th and in-front of the aforementioned Russell, who again made it into Q4 for the fourth consecutive time for Williams.

Russell only ran one lap in Q2, on the softer rubber that made the Briton take 15th in that session.

Q1 saw Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat eliminated by Ocon’s last improvement in the closing stages in the first segment after he had his final hot-lap invalidated for exceeding track limits at Stowe corner.

But that flyer was not Kvyat’s best effort – and the Russian reported: “something broke” on his slower and deleted lap.

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen and Grosjean posted their best initial Q1 times on the medium tyres, along with Russell, before they all switched to the softs.

But whilst Grosjean made it into the middle segment, Magnussen was knocked out in the final wave of improvements as the track continued to evolve, with Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen all brought up the rear.

The Top Three

F170 Pole Position – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“Feels good, I love qualifying. I think set up wise, we made big steps from last weekend. Proud to drive this amazing car. Mentally when you start on pole you can only aim to win the race, I need a good start from the line and then go from there.”

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

“I wasn’t that great. For me it wasn’t a perfect last lap. I don’t think many people will be managing [tyres], I think it will be highly unlikely anyone will do a one-stop.”

3rd – Nico Hulkenberg, #27, BWT Racing Point F1 Team, RP20:

“Crazy! Last week big highs to come back then the big low on Sunday. This week I felt more prepared. A big surprised to be standing here but a big smile on my face. The race is definitely going to hurt tomorrow but we’ll do what we can, I’ll try to learn fast.”

You can read the full Emirates Formula 1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix 2020 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1049/great-britain/qualifying.html

In the earlier FP3 session today, Hamilton out-paced Mercedes team-mate Bottas by 0.163 seconds, with Norris third, while the two Racing Point’s of Hulkenberg and Stroll completed the top five.

In FP2 yesterday, Hamilton lead from team-mate Bottas by 0.176 seconds, followed by Ricciardo who was third, Verstappen fourth and Stroll rounding out the top five.

You can catch up on yesterday’s opening practice session as well as this weekend’s race preview at the following links:

#F170 FP1 Report: @ValtteriBottas leads @MercedesAMGF1 one-two. #F1

@Emirates #Formula1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix 2020 Preview. #F1 #F170