Hamilton grabs Austria pole despite spin in his final run

Track conditions for the Austrian Grand Prix qualifying session was damp after light showers early on with a probable forecast of rain.

Q1 was interesting as lap times tumbled when the track started to dry  out with most of the drivers clocking fastest lap with different tyre compounds.

Rosberg topped Q1 fastest but early leader Hamilton ended 13th after an off track excursion on the last minute trying to avoid a slow car.

Raikkonen on the Ferrari got knocked out in Q1 clocking just 17th and so did the McLaren driver Jenson Button managing 18th while his team mate Alonso managed to scrap into Q2 by finishing 15th

In Q2 it was again Rosberg who topped the session from team mate Hamilton. World champion Lewis Hamilton was fast in sector1 but lost valuable time in sector 2 and 3. Fernando Alonso lost out in Q2 with his struggling McLaren already incurring a 25 place gird penatly for changng the engine and gearbox.

The Q3 was the most dramatic adding flavour to the time chase as Hamilton made a quick lap on his 3rd lap of this first run 0.200secs ahead of team mate Rosberg.

In his 2nd run Hamilton was released just behind Bottas but the world champion had to slow down to space out from the Williams driver to do his time attack and was waiting for the 2nd lap at the end of the minute.

Drama began as Hamilton started his final quick lap, his car lost the back end when he braked to enter C1 and spun out failing to capitialize on his previous quick lap almost cartain of losing pole to team mate Nco Rosberg who was two hundredths of a second faster. 

It was almost certain the Rosberg was taking pole but all went wrong for the German driver as he pushed too hard into the last part of the track going wide and ending up in the gravel handing pole to Hamilton. Vettel on the Ferrari came in 3rd fastest. 

Lewis Hamilton
Generally it was quite a difficult session, for everyone I think, with the conditions. I´m really grateful I got that third lap in on the first run in Q3. I was pushing hard to find more time on the final lap of the second run and just locked the rears into Turn One. At that point I was backwards in seventh gear and just focused on trying to make sure I didn´t damage the car. But then, once I stopped, I thought I´d probably lost it. It was bizarre but I´m really happy to get pole. It will be an interesting race tomorrow. Ferrari have shown great pace so it will be close with them. The tyres seem to be behaving so we should be set for a good battle. 

Nico Rosberg
I had to push a lot at the end of my last qualifying lap – but I pushed a bit too much and went over the limit. I saw on my screen that I was two tenths quicker than on my previous run and therefore equal to Lewis. It was really up to the last few metres to make the pole happen but, at turn eight, I went wide and got a bit on the astroturf which was still wet. I think after that my left tyres were also wet and that made me lose control of the situation. It´s a shame but I still look very much forward to tomorrow. It’s a great race here and I still have good chances to win. I will need to have a good start to have a shot at Lewis but I will definitely be keeping the pressure high.