Bottas delivers Spielberg epic for pole

Valtteri Bottas took his first pole position of the season and second in as many years at the Austrian Grand Prix, delivering a blistering performance to lead a front-row lockout for Mercedes ahead of Lewis Hamilton. The Silver Arrows look odds-on to continue their winning streak at the Red Bull Ring thanks to a raft of aero upgrades.

Sebastian Vettel had to settle for third after initially setting the pace, but Bottas came to the fore in the top-10 shootout, with Hamilton unable to touch his team-mate.

Vettel could end up losing third place, after blocking Carlos Sainz Jr during Q2, which prompted a stewards' enquiry.

Bottas stopped the clock at one minute 3.130 seconds on his final flying run, demolishing the outright lap record he had set 12 months ago.

He converted that pole to a win last year and will hope to put a run of poor fortune to bed with victory on Sunday.

Kimi Raikkonen joins Vettel on the second row, but there was a shock behind, with Romain Grosjean splitting the Red Bulls to qualify sixth - the Frenchman giving himself a perfect platform to break his points drought in 2018.

Max Verstappen is alongside Grosjean on row three, with Daniel Ricciardo starting seventh, with Kevin Magnussen and the Renault pair of Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg also in the top 10.

PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION

Q2

McLaren might have to get creative for Sunday after Fernando Alonso broke their third front wing of the weekend while pushing on his final flying lap. Charles Leclerc qualified 13th, but will start 18th after taking a new gearbox for qualifying. Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll exited in this round.

Q1

Sergio Perez was the surprise departure in Q1, with traffic and a late yellow flag doing for the Force India man. Stoffel Vandoorne, Sergey Sirotkin, Brendon Hartley and Marcus Ericsson were more familiar early leavers. Stroll's yelp of "YES!" when informed he was into Q2 is a sad indictment of Williams' continued slump.