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Massa will be joined on the front row by Williams teammate Valtteri Bottas
LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC - Fellipe Massa took a surprising pole on Saturday in Austria after Mercedes faltered.
Felipe Massa took a surprise pole position in Austria as Williams Formula One swept the front row and the usually dominant Mercedes faltered. Massa will start alongside teammate Valtteri Bottas, who was quickest on the first runs in Q3, but made a mistake on the crucial final run.
Two key factors had an impact on the session. First, it was important to get the tires up to temperature and working well from the start of the lap, something that Williams had worked hard on. Second, the FIA clamped down hard on drivers running wide at turn eight, the penultimate corner. Anyone who put all four wheels beyond the white line had that time cancelled.
That's exactly what happened to Lewis Hamilton, who lost his time from the first run, and thus had to rely totally on his second attempt. Alas he spun at turn two -- and the yellow flags he triggered forced teammate Nico Rosberg to back off and abandon his second attempt.
That left the Williams drivers clear at the front, with Massa beating Bottas to pole by less than a tenth. Rosberg had to settle for third with the time from his first run.
“It was pretty clear that our car was good and our car was competitive, and it showed a good performance today,” said Massa.
“I'm really happy for us as team,” said Bottas. “We've made some big, big steps from last year, and now we get a result like this.”
Rosberg said he wasn't happy with his balance, but was adamant that he has a good race car for Sunday. "It's possible to overtake on this track, and in the first stint, the tires will degrade massively,” he said.
Behind Rosberg, Fernando Alonso took a good fourth, the Ferrari driver having survived a trip across the grass at the exit of the last corner early in Q3.
Montreal winner Daniel Ricciardo took fifth place after another solid performance from the Australian, who once again humbled teammate Sebastian Vettel. Vettel didn't make the top 10.
Kevin Magnussen bounced back from recent disappointments to take sixth for McLaren, ahead of STR's Daniil Kvyat. Behind Kimi Raikkonen Hamilton moved up to ninth, despite not setting a time, as Nico Hulkenberg had his lap disallowed for going off at turn eight. The Force India driver thus dropped to 10th and last in Q3.
His teammate Sergio Perez just missed out on Q3 when he took 11th place, but thanks to his five-place grid penalty from Montreal, he will drop down to 16th. His place thus goes to Jenson Button, who could not match his teammate. The same went for
Vettel, who starts 12th at Red Bull's home race. He was followed by Pastor Maldonado, who went into the gravel on his last lap, Jean-Eric Vergne, and Romain Grosjean.
Adrian Sutil was fastest of the drivers not to make it out of Q1, having had his best time cancelled for a turn-eight excursion. He starts behind the penalized Perez in 17th, ahead of Esteban Gutierrez, Jenson Button, Kamui Kobayashi, Max Chilton and Marcus Ericsson.
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WTF how long was I asleep?
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Topic: FIA Formula One World Championship (Read 77064 times)