Austria – Qualifying: Lewis Hamilton makes light work of the rain, Nico Hülkenberg on the front row

This session starts under the sun, the lap times follow one after another for the 22 players, but Sergio Perez quickly heads to the pits at a slow pace due to a failure of his right rear suspension. The new curbs seem to be the cause of these repeated failures as this is the third one since the beginning of the weekend.

A few minutes later, it was Kyat’s turn to break his right rear suspension, losing control of his car which hit the wall separating the pit lane from the track head-on. His car ended up in the run-off area of the last turn. The car was shattered, but the driver emerged unscathed from the crash.

The red flag was obviously displayed to give the marshals time to clean the track. The session resumed with less than two minutes remaining. The drivers can still hope to make it to Q2 and thus launch into action as soon as the green light is given. But Carlos Sainz breaks his engine on the first acceleration out of the pits, causing a yellow flag. This was reportedly not respected by Nico Hülkenberg, who will have to explain himself before the stewards at the end of the session.

The clock stops and here are the first five eliminations: Kevin Magnussen, Jolyon Palmer, Rio Haryanto, Daniil Kvyat, Marcus Ericsson, and Felipe Nasr.

The sky has darkened significantly. The engineers announce rain in the next eight minutes. The two Mercedes are the first to leave the pits. The drivers continue to go over the curbs. The rain makes its appearance six minutes before the end of the session. Jenson Button makes an error in a corner and goes through the gravel trap, without damage to his car.

Romain Grosjean also gets caught out. The session ends there as no one can improve. Gutierrez is 11th, just ahead of Pascal Wehrlein, who delivers a great performance with his Manor by finishing in a very impressive 12th place. It’s the best result for the team since Silverstone 2014. Romain Grosjean and Fernando Alonso are the last two to be eliminated.

The eliminated from Q2 are: Gutierrez, Wehrlein, Grosjean, Alonso, Perez, and Sainz.

The track is therefore wet between the two sessions. All the drivers go out on intermediate tires, but the sun quickly returns, which dries the track very quickly. The laps continue smoothly and become increasingly faster. Nico Hülkenberg is the first to switch to slicks with four minutes remaining. All the drivers follow suit. In the last two minutes, the pole position changes between drivers with each pass across the line.

In the end, it’s Lewis Hamilton who comes out on top, posting a lap half a second faster than Nico Rosberg. Nico Hülkenberg once again shows his advantage in these tricky conditions and will start from second place, thanks to Nico Rosberg’s penalty. Sebastian Vettel set the fourth fastest time but will also be pushed back. Jenson Button will therefore start third, ahead of Kimi Raikonnen, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen, and Felipe Massa.