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Valtteri Bottas earned pole position for the Eifel Grand Prix in a fight with his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Bottas took first place on his final lap to claim pole for 0.256 seconds after Verstappen set the pace in the first few races in final qualifying.
It was the closest Mercedes came to being beaten in this year’s qualifying, but Verstappen fell back to third place.
Charles Leclerc was fourth for Ferrari to match his best grid position of 2020.
Bottas’ return ended a five-pole pole streak for Hamilton.
It was the third pole of the year for the Finn, his previous ones in the inaugural race in Austria and the second race at Silverstone, the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Verstappen was fastest in the first few races in the final standings by 0.068 seconds, with Hamilton 0.013 seconds further adrift.
Hamilton was fastest on his last lap, but Bottas overtook him to take pole, two weeks after winning the Russian Grand Prix.
“It’s such a nice feeling when you get it on the last lap and that was pretty good,” said Bottas.
Hamilton said: “He did a great job, so congratulations. There’s a lot to play for tomorrow.”
Verstappen said: “In Q3, when it really mattered, I started to understeer too much, which cost me a bit of lap time. We are getting closer to Mercedes, which is positive. A little disappointed, I was expecting a little more, but still I can. be happy. “
The race weekend was shortened to two days after Friday’s practice was canceled because fog from the hill made the medical helicopter unable to take off.
The last practice session and qualifying on Saturday took place under sunny skies, but the weather was cold, as expected in the Eifel Mountains in Germany in mid-October, at only 10 ° C.
Leclerc’s performance was perhaps the highlight of qualifying, the Ferrari 0.8 seconds off pole after introducing a number of aerodynamic improvements.
It equaled Leclerc’s fourth place at the British Grand Prix as the team’s best of the year.
His teammate Sebastian Vettel was eleventh, failing to make it through the second knockout session, in which he was 0.5 seconds slower than Leclerc.
Red Bull’s Alexander Albon ranked fifth, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon’s Renaults, with Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz’s McLarens sandwiching Sergio Pérez’s Racing Point at the bottom of the top 10.
Perez’s teammate Lance Stroll pulled out of the weekend with illness and was replaced by Nico Hulkenberg, the German who replaced Perez when the Mexican contracted coronavirus for both Silverstone races.
Hulkenberg, who did not get a call from the team to come on the track until 11:00 CET and while in Cologne, was thrown to the bottom in qualifying and finished last.
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