4
Charles Leclerc has taken pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix after a mechanical issue put Sebastian Vettel out of qualifying in Q3.
Vettel is set to line-up in ninth place after his team discovered an issue with his SF90 at the end of Q2, which prevented him from making it out of the garage in the final stage.
Leclerc takes his second pole position of the season, beating Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton to the top spot on the front row by just over two and a half tenths of a second.
Leclerc and Vettel will both start the race on the soft compound tyre while Mercedes and Max Verstappen, who got his car to third place, will start on the medium compound.
After looking strong in the midfield battle for much of the weekend, McLaren lost out to Haas in Q3 as Kevin Magnussen pipped Lando Norris for fifth on the grid.
Pierre Gasly looked strong throughout the opening two qualifying stages, but couldn't produce a strong lap in the final session, and will line up alongside Sebastian Vettel on the last row for Sunday's race.
It was also an encouraging session for Alfa Romeo who got both of its cars inside the top ten, with Kimi Raikkonen outqualifying teammate Antonio Giovinazzi.
Renault struggled to demonstrate pace during qualifying as both cars dropped out in Q2. Nico Hulkenberg, who will take a five-place grid penalty, was 12th while teammate Daniel Ricciardo was 14th, two tenths down.
Romain Grosjean and Alexander Albon joined them in the dropzone, as did Carlos Sainz who didn't set a representative time as he will start from the back of the grid.
Both Racing Point cars dropped out in Q1, along with the Williams' and Daniil Kvyat, who was impeded on his final lap by George Russell.
Red Bull Ring - 29 June 2019
Charles Leclerc, you beauty. An exciting session. Would this be finally the one? I don't want to jinx it.
Rotten luck for Ferrari. I am not too convinced with their strategy but given that it is different from others it should be interesting. Sebastian is really on the backfoot now, he'll have to come through the field on those soft tyres and it's not going to be easy at all. Some would say he brought this upon himself by going over the kerb in the early part of session if it is discovered to be a leak.
Verstappen too is in a class of his own, continuing to extract the last bit.
A shout out to Magnussen for being P5 and ahead of Gasly. It's very up and down with Renault not so much with McLaren though.
A pretty good session. Good to see a car that isn't a Merc' on top, but I think Merc' will win this based on race pace, unless Verstappen can get into the mix and impede them somewhat. And depending on how things turn out, this could be a chance for either a Ferrari win or a Red Bull win, and I'm all for either.
Great Qualy session. The midfield got turned on its head.
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Charles Leclerc, you beauty. An exciting session. Would this be finally the one? I don't want to jinx it.
Rotten luck for Ferrari. I am not too convinced with their strategy but given that it is different from others it should be interesting. Sebastian is really on the backfoot now, he'll have to... [Read more]