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• Valtteri Bottas qualify first for Eifel GP.
• Nico Hulkenberg replaces Lance Stroll at Racing Point.
• Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari in fourth place.
• For more motorsports stories, visit www.Wheels24.co.za
Valtteri Bottas took pole position after a back-and-forth battle with his teammate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The Mercedes driver appeared to have been behind Hamilton and Verstappen during the final stages of classification, but he chained everything to take the 14th pole of his career in Formula 1.
Behind the top three drivers were Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Alex Albon (Red Bull),
For Leclerc, it was another stellar performance in an underperforming car. The Ferrari driver once again surpassed his car and made his presence felt in a session in which his illustrious teammate Sebastian Vettel was eliminated after the second part of qualifying.
Before the start of the third practice this morning, the Racing Point team announced that driver Lance Stroll is not feeling well. This prompted a series of fixes by the team who had to find a replacement in case Stroll couldn’t run.
A quick call to Nico Hulkenberg saw the pilot hit the track and ready to perform a miracle. In the end, Hulkenberg qualified in last place, but missed the second part of the classification by less than half a second.
READ: Valtteri Bottas leads the only practice session before qualifying for the 2020 Eifel GP
The significance of all this is that while the rest of the grid had been run this morning, Hulkenberg’s only time at the wheel was when qualifying came. In his first race, he was 3.5 seconds off the pace, but in the end, he missed around 0.5 seconds. Conditions this weekend are not ideal. And with four laps under his belt (while others had plenty of practice this morning), this attempt by Hulkenberg is being praised by F1 experts.
Make sure to keep an eye on Hulkenberg in tomorrow’s race. Has potential to finish the race on points.
