Brendan Lines 9th August, 2020 08:00am

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas scored the 13th pole position of his career, his second of the 2020 season and his second at Silverstone on Saturday pipping teammate Lewis Hamilton in a closely-fought battle for pole by just +0.063s, but Racing Point’s super-sub Nico Hülkenberg stole the show qualifying P3 for his second race back in F1.

“It’s been a crazy week and after the highs and lows of my comeback last week, P3 on the grid for tomorrow is a nice highlight! Last week definitely helped me feel more prepared for this weekend,but qualifying was still a real challenge today. In Q2, I made life hard for myself a little bit and I thought I might have damaged the car.” Hülkenberg said after qualifying.

“I haven’t been through the motions of a race start and going wheel-to-wheel for a while now, and I’m still learning the car. But I’ll give everything I’ve got to make sure we get a strong result.”

‘Hulk’ was the only driver to get within a second of the Mercs front row lockout headed by Bottas.

“I knew I’d have an opportunity to improve on the second run in Q3 and I pulled the sectors together, I got absolutely everything out of myself and the car,” Bottas said.

“A one-stopper will be difficult with the compounds we have this weekend – but I know the team will be looking at all the options for tomorrow. I think the race pace is there and I hope I can get another good start like last weekend.”

Lewis didn’t quite build on his first lap of Q3, the Brit not getting the final sectors lit up they way he expected on the Medium tyre.
“Valtteri did a fantastic job today, he put in a very strong lap when it mattered in Q3 to take pole. My first lap in Q3 was good, but the second one wasn’t really all that great,” Hamilton said.

“I just didn’t pull it together, made a couple of mistakes right at the end and ultimately you pay for that. The change in wind direction made it a bit trickier out there today, but that was the same for everyone so no excuses.”

Rounding out the second row was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a tenth adrift from Hulk in P4.

Daniel Ricciardo who has showed consistent pace all weekend on the Medium tyre, slotted into P5, equalling Renault’s best qualifying for the season.

Lance Stroll couldn’t match Hulk in the sister Racing Point qualifying P6, behind Stroll, Pierre Gasly kept up his great run of Q3 appearances for Alpha Tauri taking P7.

Charles Leclerc was the best of the Ferrari’s in P8, while Sebastin Vettel could not get out of Q2 and will start from P12.

Lando Norris makes up the top ten for McLaren, scraping into Q3 but couldn’t better his position for the race.

The 70th Anniversary GP at Silverstone begins 10.40pm ACST.