Bottas beats Hamilton to Imola pole after Verstappen endures heart-thumping electrical issue
Bottas beats Hamilton to Imola pole after Verstappen endures heart-thumping electrical issue
Valtteri Bottas snatched pole position from Lewis Hamilton for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in a qualifying session that caused Red Bull and Max Verstappen some heart-stopping moments.
Bottas ousted Hamilton from top spot on the grid at Imola with his final flying lap, edging his Mercedes team-mate by 0.097s with a time of one minute 13.690secs for the 15th pole of his Formula 1 career and fourth this season.
Verstappen will start third, and that after a nervy session in Q2 when he lost power on his first run, described by team principal Christian Horner as an "electrical issue causing a misfire", believed to be a spark plug.
With two and a half minutes remaining, and following another remarkable effort from the Red Bull mechanics to fix the problem, they were able to send Verstappen back out on a set of mediums that allowed him to secure his place in Q3.
The Dutch driver, though, was half-a-second adrift of Bottas, underlining Mercedes' superiority this season, and will have AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly alongside him on row two following a stunning session for the Frenchman.
Renault's Daniel Ricciardo netted fifth, while for Verstappen's under-pressure team-mate Alex Albon, who is in danger of losing his seat, it was another tough qualifying session as he exceeded track limits in Q1 and required a late lap to secure his place in Q2.
On his first run in the second session, Albon spun, flat-spotting his medium tyres, forcing him to undertake his second outing on the softs, and then in Q3, he had another lap deleted on his first outing, adding to his angst, leaving him to eventually line up sixth.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc again produced another fine one-lap drive and will start seventh ahead of AlphaTauri's Daniil Kvyat, with McLaren duo Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz starting ninth and 10th.
The second part of the qualifying session proved to be a disaster for Racing Point, with Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll lining up 11th and 15th, severely harming the team in its battle for third place in the constructors' championship.
Sandwiched in between the duo will be Renault's Esteban Ocon, George Russell in his Williams, and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.
For Russell, it is the eighth time in 13 races this season he has reached Q2, while he has now out-qualified a Williams team-mate for all 34 grands prix in which he has competed, missing out on a place in Q3 by less than three-tenths of a second.
As for Vettel, the four-time F1 champion has now failed to reach the top-10 shoot-out for nine consecutive races, finishing almost four-tenths of a second down on Leclerc.
At the end of an intriguing Q1, and given the perfect conditions for qualifying, it was the usual array of suspects in the bottom five.
Haas drivers Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen will start 16th and 17th ahead, with Alfa Romeo duo Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi sandwiching Nicholas Latifi in his Williams in 19th.
Given the positivity leading into the weekend for Alfa Romeo, which confirmed it is to continue in F1 for next season, and with Raikkonen and Giovinazzi signing new deals for 2021, there will have been grave disappointment at such a miserable qualifying.
Raikkonen was one of a handful of drivers, along with Hamilton, Bottas and Albon, who had a lap time deleted in Q1 that would have been good enough to have secured the Finn a place in the second qualifying session.
Before you go...
Russell backs two-day weekends but wants two practice sessions
Imola "not a great race circuit" - Hamilton
Related
Change your timezone:
Latest News
F1 Qualifying Results: Chinese Grand Prix 2024 times as Hamilton crashes out in Q1
- 18 minutes ago
Chinese Grand Prix Sprint 2024 results: Final classification with penalties applied
- 1 hour ago
Hamilton suffers CATASTROPHIC F1 qualifying after early exit
- 7 minutes ago
Chinese Grand Prix qualifying red flagged after unusual HIGH SPEED crash
- 16 minutes ago
F1 Chinese Grand Prix weather forecast - latest today from Shanghai
- 1 hour ago
Perez hits 'engineer's brother' in Chinese GP incident
- 1 hour ago
Related news
F1 reveals viewing figure drop for European based 2020 season
Pirelli boss hails "miracle" despite "nightmare" 2020
Survival the only positive for Haas from dismal 2020 - Steiner
Ricciardo reveals internal pressure for podiums during time with Renault
F1 Standings
Drivers
- Oliver Bearman
- Charles Leclerc
- Carlos Sainz
- Lando Norris
- Oscar Piastri
- Pierre Gasly
- Esteban Ocon
- Sergio Pérez
- Max Verstappen
- Alexander Albon
- Logan Sargeant
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Nico Hülkenberg
- Kevin Magnussen
- Fernando Alonso
- Lance Stroll
- Valtteri Bottas
- Zhou Guanyu
- Daniel Ricciardo
- Yuki Tsunoda
Races
- Gulf Air Grand Prix of Bahrain 2024
- Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Australia 2024
- MSC Cruises Grand Prix of Japan 2024
- Grand Prix of China 2024
- Miami Grand Prix 2024
- Gran Premio dell'Emilia Romagna 2024
- Grand Prix of Monaco 2024
- Grand Prix du Canada 2024
- Gran Premio de España 2024
- Grand Prix of Austria 2024
- Grand Prix of Great Britain 2024
- Grand Prix of Hungary 2024
- Grand Prix of Belgium 2024
- Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Italy 2024
- Grand Prix of Azerbaijan 2024
- Grand Prix of Singapore 2024
- Grand Prix of the United States 2024
- Gran Premio de la Ciudad de Mexico 2024
- Grande Prêmio de São Paulo 2024
- Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024
- Qatar Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi 2024
About GPFans
GPFans is a multi-platform, multi-language brand dedicated to Formula One coverage. We bring you all the ins and outs of the sport, 24/7, everything from up-to-the-minute news and features to the latest viral stories and clips.We believe that a new generation of exciting, outspoken drivers will make F1 more popular than ever before, and we want to give our users access to as much of their heroes as possible, on and off the track. From Lewis Hamilton to Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo to Sebastian Vettel, we provide in-depth analysis of every every Grand Prix in the season, from Australia to Abu Dhabi.
With Formula One under the new ownership of Liberty Media, how the sport is being covered is evolving, and GPFans will look to be at the heart of this progression into new media, as one of the fastest-growing sites covering the king of motorsports.
Follow us on your favorite social media channel
Corporate & Media
Innovatieweg 20C7007 CD, Doetinchem, Netherlands
+31645516860