World News – UA – Bottas snatch pole from Hamilton for F1 Emilia Romagna GP

Valtteri Bottas’ late improvement saw him narrowly beat his Mercedes F1 teammate Lewis Hamilton to take pole position at the Emilia Romagna GP at Imola

Valtteri Bottas’ late improvement saw him narrowly beat his Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Lewis Hamilton to take pole position at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola

Bottas followed Hamilton by 0031s after the first runs of Q3 but the Finn changed the game on his last flying lap with a 1m13609 to snatch his fourth pole of the 2020 season and the 15th of his career

Hamilton finished just 0097 on Bottas as he took second place, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who survived an engine problem in Q2 to advance to third on the grid

Verstappen had reported that he had « no power » but a Herculean effort from Red Bull allowed them to successfully change a faulty spark plug on the Dutchman’s RB16 to get him back on track to only 90 seconds from the end of the second trimester

A sublime lap from Pierre Gasly saw the Frenchman secure an excellent fourth place for AlphaTauri, ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and second Red Bull from Alex Albon, who could only qualify sixth as he continues to fight for his seat on the team for 2021

Charles Leclerc was seventh fastest for Ferrari, ahead of AlphaTauri of Daniil Kvyat and the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz, who contested the top 10

Racing Point failed to get a car into Q3 as Sergio Perez missed out on 11th place, although the Mexican was the best-placed driver to have the choice of tires for the start of the race

12th place went to Renault’s Esteban Ocon, while George Russell put in another superb qualifying performance to take 13th place in his eighth appearance in Q2 of the season with a lap that featured the first most fast managed by any pilot in this session

Sebastian Vettel’s struggles at Ferrari continued in qualifying at Imola, with the quadruple world champion having a lap time waived for track limits and only being able to qualify 14th, seven places behind teammate Leclerc

Lance Stroll will only line up 15th on the grid after a rambling Q2 in which he lost his best time to a track boundary violation, as well as running wide at the final chicane

Romain Grosjean missed a second quarter berth by just 0096 as his Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen failed to improve on his final flight lap after a trip through gravel and the grass for a long time at the last chicane

Kimi Raikkonen, the only driver in the current field to have raced at Imola in F1 before, remained 18th as top-placed Alfa Romeo after his best Q1 time was dropped due to an offense at the edge of the track

Williams’ Nicholas Latifi and Antonio Giovinazzi’s second Alfa Romeo backed the order with the slowest times of all, the latter making a mistake on his last effort

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Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton, Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, Max Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas, Red Bull Racing