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Bottas earns pole at Austrian GP

July 8, 2017

Valtteri Bottas has earned his second pole of his career in Spielberg. Bottas beat out Sebastian Vettel, who currently leads the Driver's Championship, while Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton will start in eighth.

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Österreich Formel 1 in Spielberg
Image: Picture alliance/dpa/AP/D. Bandic

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was just four hundredths of a second faster than Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in qualifying for Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix.

"I enjoyed it today. The car was getting better and better as the day went on and I'm very happy to be on pole," Bottas said, whose fastest lap was 1 minute, 4.251 seconds at the Spielberg circuit.

Fellow Silver Arrow Lewis Hamilton finished third, but will start eighth on the grid after a five-place grid penalty for an unorthodox gear box change. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull, Romain Grosjean of Haas and Sergio Perez of Force India move up as a result.

Force India's Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz Jr. of Toro Rosso round off the top ten.

Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton
Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton (from left to right) at qualifying for the Austrian GPImage: picture-alliance/Hoch Zwei

Vettel: 'I messed up'

Vettel seemed to be feeling a little remorse this week after his dust-up with Hamilton in last week's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver's "road rage" saw him drive into Hamilton after the British driver slowed on the exit of Turn 15 under safety car conditions after a red-flag stoppage. Vettel was slapped with a 10-second stop-go penalty that dropped him from second to ninth.

Read more: Ricciardo wins in Baku as Hamilton and Vettel clash

Hamilton, who described the actions as "disgraceful" at the time, said he had the "utmost respect" for Vettel in a press conference Thursday. Vettel said Saturday he hoped that time would repair the damage to their respectful rivalry.

"Actually, it's not the same, because I messed up," Vettel said. "So, I told him that I understand if he's not happy and not cool about it, but I hope time will fix things."

Vettel leads Hamilton atop the driver's championship by 14 points going into Sunday's race in Spielberg.

dv/mf (AFP, dpa)