Mercedes may not have Lewis Hamilton in pole position for Sunday's ninth round of the 2017 Formula One Championship season but they do have Valtteri Bottas, who secured his second career pole position - his first in Spielberg and second of the 2017 season - and the team's seventh in nine races this year;.
Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari will start alongside the Finn in second while teammate Lewis Hamilton was third quickest - and will provisionally start Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix from eighth after taking his five place grid demotion for a gewarbox change.
“If I am completely honest, we had hoped for a little more this afternoon, but it seems churlish to be anything other than delighted by a splendid pole position for Valtteri and third place for Lewis, whose performance in Q2 showed that he has plenty of race pace to unleash tomorrow,” said James Allison, technical director at Mercedes. “ It will surely be an interesting Grand Prix, dodging the possible rain showers and making the most of our potential at this deceptively tricky track.”
With Lewis's grid demotion, Kimi Raikkonen will move up into third place for Ferrari with the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo alongside him on row two.
Row three sees the second Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who had a trip into the gravel at the very end of Q3, joined by the Haas of Romain Grosjean.
Row four will be filled with the Force India of Sergio Perez and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton with Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz rounding out the top ten.
