The reactions of the top 3 in Austria, before Vettel’s penalty
Valtteri Bottas managed to retain his poleman title in Austria, narrowly ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton, while Sebastian Vettel had to settle for watching from a distance. The German will be even further back as he received a three-place penalty.
Red Bull proves to be Valtteri Bottas’s favorite circuit: having secured pole last year, he was able to retain his title this year. But Lewis Hamilton came within a hair’s breadth of securing a second consecutive pole position.
The Finn was able to rely on a very fast first lap to have all the confidence needed for his second attempt: « The gaps are very small. It’s a small circuit, but it’s easy to make a mistake. » In contrast, his two main rivals of the day, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, got off on the wrong foot during Q3, as the Brit acknowledges: « I made a mistake on my first lap. So that means I started from scratch on my second lap. »
Finally, less than the Ferrari driver, who was only in seventh position after his first attempt. If he wanted not to let his rival for the title escape, the German had to ensure a minimum during his last attempt: « I think I could have done a little better, but since I made a small mistake on my first lap, I had to make sure I had a good lap to avoid starting too far on the grid. » But he admits that his machine is not at the level of the Silver Arrows over one lap: « I don’t think we are fast enough to be a real threat. But I think we are stronger on race pace. So it should be close tomorrow. » It will be interesting to see the strategic differences between the two leading teams as Mercedes will start on Super Softs while Ferrari will be on Ultra Softs.
But driver No. 5 had to endure the stewards’ decision regarding the incident at the end of Q2, which saw him impede Carlos Sainz who was starting a fast lap: « I passed him in turn 7 or 8 on my fast lap. I then looked, but I didn’t see him on the straight. I wasn’t told anything on the radio. I didn’t see him, so I’m sorry, but there was clearly no intention to harm him. » Despite this defense, the stewards determined that there was indeed an impediment and decided to impose a three-place penalty on him. This pushes him back to 6th on the grid and leaves the field clear for the two Mercedes drivers.
It remains to be seen if Valtteri Bottas will again be able to make a perfect start, like last year, where his reaction time was… 0 milliseconds!
From our special correspondent in Austria
