Lewis Hamilton qualifies on pole position ahead of the 2020 F1 Styrian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton dominated the 2020 F1 Styrian Grand Prix qualifying after setting a pole time 1.2 seconds faster than second-placed Max Verstappen.

Q1

After a delayed start, the session was finally started after a 45-minute delay to the first qualifying session of the Styrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring.

The first time set in the session was by Sebastian Vettel. The German clocked up a time of 1:24.235 before Italian Antonio Giovinazzi came through a tenth slower than the Ferrari driver.

With five minutes to go, the fastest driver on the circuit in the wet conditions was Lewis Hamilton, who set a time of 1:18.188 with Carlos Sainz four-tenths slower than the Brit.

The session was red-flagged with 13 seconds left in Q1 as Giovinazzi was parked dangerously out of Turn four with the session not being restarted.

The drivers knocked out of Q1 were Romain Grosjean, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nicholas Latifi, Sergio Perez and Kimi Raikkonen.

At the top of the timings, Lewis Hamilton stayed P1 after his 1:18.188 lap. Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were P2 and P3 one-tenth behind Hamilton.

Q2

Q2 started off quite swiftly after the end of Q1 as teams were worried about the rain coming in thick and fast.

Vettel put in the first time of Q2 and was about three seconds slower than Hamilton’s Q1 time. Valterri Bottas went two seconds faster than Vettel’s time a few seconds after the German completed his lap.

Five minutes were left in the session and Max Verstappen was fastest of the 15 drivers out there with a lap time of 1:17.938. Hamilton then went the fastest with a lap time of 1:17.825.

A Ferrari was knocked out of Q2 for the second week in a row but this time it was Charles Leclerc who missed out on Q3. Leclerc was joined by George Russell, Lance Stroll, Danil Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen, who rounded out the timings.

Lewis Hamilton was fastest in Q2 after a lap time of 1:17.825 with Verstappen being one-tenth behind the British driver and Lando Norris was in P3 six-tenths behind Hamilton’s time.

Q3

A lot of rain fell in the break in between the end of Q2 and the start of Q3.

The first time on the board was by Red Bull’s Verstappen who set a time of 1:21.800 with Norris 1.593 seconds down on the Dutchman.

Five minutes were left in the last qualifying session when Bottas was on provisional pole with a time of 1:21.038 but, Hamilton went nearly four-tenths faster than his teammate and dipped into the 1:20’s.

Verstappen went onto pole position after a 1:20.489 lap time. Hamilton then decided to go onto pole with a 1:19.702 lap being quicker by seven-tenths than Verstappen.

The Dutchman on a flying lap spun and ruined his flying lap leaving him in P2. This left Hamilton on pole by 1.2 seconds.

So, the final grid was decided. Lewis Hamilton claimed pole with Max Verstappen alongside him in P2, Carlos Sainz and Valterri Bottas in P3 and P4 respectively. Esteban Ocon qualified P5 with Lando Norris in P6 with a three-place grid penalty to come for the young Englishman. Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top ten.

Charles Leclerc was P11 with George Russell qualifying an amazing P12 for Williams. Lance Stroll qualified P13 with Danil Kyvat in P14 and Kevin Magnussen in P15. Kimi Raikkonen was in P16, Sergio Perez in P17, Nicholas Latifi in P18, Antonio Giovinazzi in P19 and Romain Grosjean will start from the back of the grid after not setting a lap time in qualifying.