Valtteri Bottas carried on his momentum from Sochi by claiming a brilliant pole for the Eifel Grand Prix.
The Finn produced a blistering new lap record around the Nurburgring of 1m25.269s to beat teammate Lewis Hamilton, as Mercedes just saw off a strong challenge from Max Verstappen.
Q1
Qualifying began with Nico Hulkenberg being thrown in at the deep end, replacing the unwell Lance Stroll at Racing Point.
Unfortunately, for the German, the mountain was a little too high, as a few errors on each lap the Hulk bottom of the timesheet.
At the front, Verstappen led the two Mercedes’ with Lando Norris pipping Charles Leclerc into fourth late on.
While, in the battle to avoid elimination, Antonio Giovinazzi produced a strong last lap to sneak through in 15th for Alfa Romeo.
That was at the expense of Romain Grosjean, who had his final lap deleted for track limits and was 16th as a result.
No Q2 heroics at Williams but George Russell would continue his perfect qualifying record in 17th, just ahead of teammate Nicholas Latifi.
Kimi Raikkonen will start his record-breaking 323rd Grand Prix in 19th.
Q2
At the front, Mercedes initially chose the medium compound for their first runs but would switch to the softs for the start of the race.
Hamilton’s second lap but him P1 ahead of Verstappen with Bottas third. Daniel Ricciardo moved up to fourth with Leclerc continuing his strong performance in fifth.
Indeed, the Monegasque was half a second faster than teammate Sebastian Vettel, who just missed out on Q3 in 11th.
The two AlphaTauri’s followed in 12th and 13th, with Pierre Gasly ahead of Daniil Kvyat.
Giovinazzi also gave Alfa bragging rights in the lower midfield fight in 14th, beating Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.
Q3
The fight for pole began with Verstappen sitting P1 after the first runs, as just 0.081s covered him and the two Mercedes’.
On the final attempts though, the all-black Silver Arrows hit back as Hamilton went fastest before Bottas went another two-tenths quicker to secure his first pole since Silverstone.
Verstappen ultimately had to settle for third as the Red Bull man didn’t have an answer to their improvement.
Behind the top three, Charles Leclerc produced a brilliant final lap to clinch fourth for Ferrari, just ahead of Alex Albon in fifth.
Renault put themselves in a strong position with Daniel Ricciardo sixth and Esteban Ocon seventh, putting them in front of their rivals at McLaren and Racing Point.
Full results from qualifying can be seen below:
