Austrian GP Qualifying: Valterri Bottas Claims Pole In Mercedes One-Two Finish

Valterri Bottas kicked off the 2020 F1 season by claiming the twelfth pole position of his career beating his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to the finish line in the qualifying session of Austrian GP. 

Hamilton, who won all the three races of the practice session, was nipped by the Finn who finished quickest in 0.012 ahead of him to clinch the pole. Despite mistakes made by Bottas, the pole yet slid off the reach of Hamilton for not being able to speed by his teammate. 

Red Bull maintained impressive performance in their own circuit with Max Verstappen giving the Mercedes duo a good chase to finish in the third while Ferrari had a bad day with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel finishing at the bottom of the table in seventh and eleventh position respectively. 

"Great job by Valtteri, this is a great start to the season," said Hamilton. "I think we show year on year that we continue to be the best team, we're constantly pushing the boundaries and there's not really any politics within the team."

McLaren duo Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris showed great performance as well for the British driver, Norris, to have a close-up chase on Verstappen as he finished fourth whilst Sainz drifted off to settle in the eighth position.  

Though Red Bull lodged a complaint against Mercedes during the practice session over the deployment of the DAS Axis Steering device which was later approved for being legitimate, yet Mercedes showed their superiority on pace in the straight line and even at the corner to keep Verstappen at bay on his chase.

"I'm so impressed. It's truly an amazing car to drive," said Bottas. "I've obviously been preparing for this for a long time and it feels so good. Our team have done an amazing job.