Austrian GP: Bottas beats Vettel to pole by 0.042s

Teammate Lewis Hamilton finished a tenth and a half adrift in third and is thus set to start eighth as he will be taking a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.

Bottas, whose maiden F1 pole had come earlier in the season in Bahrain, crucially led Vettel after the first run of laps in the final qualifying segment, before yellow flags denied the pair and Hamilton the opportunity to improve.

The culprit was Romain Grosjean, whose Haas car slowed to a crawl midway through the lap through gearbox issues just as the leading trio had begun their final efforts.

As such, the status quo was maintained out front, with Vettel's teammate Kimi Raikkonen forced to settle for best of the rest in fourth, half a second down on the German.

Despite having trailed Max Verstappen in Q1 and Q2, Daniel Ricciardo beat his Red Bull teammate to fifth place, as the Dutchman suffered a late off in the final segment at Turn 7.

Grosjean placed seventh, with Force India duo Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon in eighth and ninth, and Carlos Sainz making up the top 10 for Toro Rosso.

Q2: Hamilton elects for supersoft start

Bottas comfortably set the pace in the second qualifying segment, putting almost half a second between himself and the lead Ferrari of Vettel.

In third place, Hamilton was close behind the German despite being the only driver in Q2 to set his best time on the supersoft compound.

All the frontrunners comfortably made it through, but there was plenty of late intrigue in the segment, with Force India's Ocon improving late on to put McLaren's Fernando Alonso out of Q3.

The Spaniard, who had had an older-spec Honda engine fitted after Friday running, was also pipped by Nico Hulkenberg and will start behind the Renault man in 12th – with teammate Stoffel Vandoorne 0.13s adrift in 13th.

Sainz's Toro Rosso teammate Daniil Kvyat was only 14th, dropping three tenths to the Spaniard despite having outpaced him in all three practice sessions earlier in the weekend.

Kevin Magnussen didn't get to turn a lap in Q2 at all after the suspension on his Haas VF-17 snapped midway through the first segment, forcing him to trudge back to the pitlane on three wheels.

His laptime was already good enough to avoid elimination in Q1, but the Dane did not reappear on track afterwards and will start 15th.

Q1: Early exits for Williams duo

The first qualifying segment ruled both Williams cars out of contention, as the FW40 struggled at the venue where the Grove-based team scored its most recent pole back in 2014.

Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll were only 17th and 18th respectively on the timing screens, the former denied a late opportunity to escape elimination by a mid-lap sideways moment.

Ahead of both but also exiting in Q1 was Renault's Jolyon Palmer, demoted to 16th by Vandoorne by the margin of 0.029s shortly before the chequered flag.

The two Saubers made up the grid, with Marcus Ericsson qualifying ahead of Pascal Wehrlein for the second time this campaign.

At the other end of the classification, Hamilton had beat Raikkonen by 0.084s to top Q1, the pair running ultrasofts as their teammates opted for the supersoft compound.

Raikkonen himself had begun the session on supersofts, but opted for a second run with a different tyre set when he found himself shuffled down to 11th.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Time	Gap
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	1'04.251
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	1'04.293	0.042
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	1'04.779	0.528
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	1'04.896	0.645
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	1'04.983	0.732
6	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	1'05.480	1.229
7	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	1'05.605	1.354
8	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	1'04.424	0.173
9	Esteban Ocon	Force India	Mercedes	1'05.674	1.423
10	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Renault	1'05.726	1.475
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault	1'05.597	1.346
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	1'05.602	1.351
13	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	Honda	1'05.741	1.490
14	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	Renault	1'05.884	1.633
15	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	Ferrari
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	1'06.345	2.094
17	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	1'06.534	2.283
18	Lance Stroll	Williams	Mercedes	1'06.608	2.357
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	1'06.857	2.606
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	Ferrari	1'07.011	2.760