Emilia Romagna GP Qualifying: Valterri Bottas Beats Lewis Hamilton To Claim Pole

Lewis Hamilton missed out on pole-winning in Imola as he narrowly was beaten to the position by his teammate Valterri Bottas, who claimed his fourth pole of the season.

Bottas was running in provisional second position behind Hamilton in Q3 and edged out the Briton in the final qualifying lap to take the pole by finishing 0.097sec quickest than his teammate. 

Looking forward to the final, with the hope of making that his third race win of the season, Bottas promised "It's going to be a good fight" against his rivals tomorrow. 

The Mercedes duo raced undisturbed in Q3 by Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who despite defiled having an engine scare to finish third by half a second late. Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly trailed the Dutch driver to finish fourth and Renault's Daniel Ricciardo came fifth. 

"What a beautiful place we're in here in Italy and the speeds we're going around this track are unbelievable," said Hamilton. "I am pretty certain we're going to see a boring race tomorrow. You can overtake into turn one but it is pretty narrow and you can't overtake on the rest."

Having set a new world record for the most F1 race win (92) last weekend, Hamilton his biding to reach a new milestone of 100th race win and his seventh world championship title. He is currently leading in standings by 77 points clear closest driver, Bottas.