Bottas beats Hamilton to pole at Eifel GP

Valtteri Bottas will start from pole position at the Nurburgring after beating teammate Lewis Hamilton in qualifying for the Eifel Grand Prix.

The Finn was just over quarter of a second faster than the reigning world champion, while Max Verstappen had to settle for third on the grid after running out of grip on his second flying lap in Q3.

There was a late change of driver at the Racing Point garage as Lance Stroll, having missed FP3 due to illness, was ruled out for the weekend, meaning Nico Hulkenberg steps in for his third race of the year with the team.

With no time in the car prior to qualifying, the German starts at the back of the grid, having been just over 0.4s off a place in Q2.

Antonio Giovinazzi made it through to the second part of qualifying for the first time in 2020, but Romain Grosjean missed out, having had two lap times deleted for note sticking to track limits.

Sebastian Vettel was knocked out in Q2, but his Ferrari teammate continued to show strong pace in the car, with Charles Leclerc splitting the Red Bull drivers to line up on the second row.

Provisional qualifying result:

1 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)

2. . Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

4. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

5. Alexander Albon (Red Bull)

6. Daniel Ricciardo (Renault)

7. Esteban Ocon (Renault)

8. Lando Norris (McLaren)

9. Sergio Perez (Racing Point)

10. Carlos Sainz (McLaren)

11. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)

12. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)

13. Daniil Kvyat (AlphaTauri)

14. Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo)

15. Kevin Magnussen (Haas)

16. Romain Grosjean (Haas)

17. George Russell (Williams)

18. Nicholas Latifi (Williams)

19. Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo)

20. Nico Hulkenberg (Racing Point)