Bottas crossed plans to team rival Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas took the first best starting position of his career after a mistake by Lewis Hamilton in Bahrjan. Hamilton, who is 0.023 seconds behind the Finn, will start the race from second place, followed by Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.

In the first part of the qualifiers, Pascal Wehrlein scored for the first time, returning to the Sauber race car after an injury in the championship race. The German set the first milestone with super-soft tires with a time of 1: 33.502. The milestone soon dropped to 1: 32.891 thanks to a lap taken by Kevin Magnussen, and after the first five minutes, the racers improved their time one by one. Ten minutes before the end, the first place was taken by Valtteri Bottas with soft tires, who drove the lap in a 1: 31.041 with a Mercedes, while a mistake in the fast lap was made by his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who braked too late in the tenth turn and drove over the curb .

Max Verstappen was the first to drop below 1: 31.904, and his achievement was improved by Hamilton by a tenth in his second attempt with yellow-lined soft tires.

Sebastian Vettel landed in third place with 0.223 seconds behind. Five minutes before the end, Hamilton led in front of Verstappn, Vettl, Bottas, Massa, Ricciard, Raikkonen, Hulkenberg, Kvyat and Sainz.

At the end of the first part of the qualifiers, Sainz, Vandoorne, Perez, Ericsson and Magnussen dropped out.

 

The 1-minute second half was first started by Bottas with a time of 29.555: 1, and his achievement was soon improved by Hamilton with 29.535: 0.7. Ricciardo and Verstappen trailed by 0.9 and 0.061 seconds, respectively, while Vettel set the third time with 0.308 seconds behind. Kimi Raikkonen, whose tires were heating unevenly, was fourth at the moment with a time of XNUMX seconds worse than Hamilton.

Grosjean, Ocon, Wehrlein, Alonso and Stroll found themselves in the elimination zone after the first rounds. Alonso said goodbye to the resumption of qualifying without setting a time, five minutes before the end, after his powertrain failed.

At the end of the time, the order was shuffled several times, but in the end Kvjat, Stroll, Wehrlein, Ocon and the aforementioned Alonso were eliminated. Hamilton, Bottas, Vettel, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Massa, Hulkenberg, Grosjean and Palmer made it to the final.

Hamilton set a milestone of 1: 28.792 with the first lap, while Bottas took 1: 28.844 in second place, Vettel with a third time of 1: 29.684, almost half a second behind the Briton. Raikkonen was 0.892 seconds behind in fourth place and Verstappen 0.895 seconds behind in fifth.

Bottas took the lead in the second attempt with 1: 28.769, Hamilton remained in second place by mistake in the last attempt, third was Vettel, fourth Ricciardo, fifth Raikkonen, sixth Verstappen, seventh Hulkenberg, eighth Massa, and the last two places divided Grosjean and Palmer.

 

 

 

Photos: Mercedes