QUALIFYING REPORT
Bottas won the battle of the Finns with the third
best time, as Raikkonen fumbled his final flyer to end
fourth fastest.
It was a forlorn Hamilton who faced the media
and explained, “It’s the second engine I took at the last
race and it’s the same failure as the last race.”
The world champion is set to start from tenth on
the grid provided there are no penalties handed out for
the turbo failure.
Felipe Massa was fifth fastest in the second
Williams, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in sixth for Red
Bull Racing, his hot lap compromised when a mirror
worked loose of his car.
Sergio Perez of Force India impressed on his way
to seventh, while teammate Nico Hulkenberg could not
make it out of Q3 ending13th on the timing screens.
Local hero Daniil Kvyat was eighth in the second
Red Bull Racing and the final top 10 spots were taken
by Toro Rosso’s and the unfortunate Hamilton, who
was also summoned to the stewards office for “failing
to follow the race director’s Turn 2 instructions”.
Kvyat’s eighth place was notable as he narrowly
escaped elimination after Q2. The Russian was in P11
as the chequered flag was waved at the end of Q2 but
he had just begun a final flying lap. To the delight of
his home crowd the Red Bull driver was able to find
enough pace to climb to P10, at the expense of Toro
Rosso’s Carlos Sainz.
Behind the Spaniard, Jenson Button came close
to taking McLaren into Q3 for the first time this season
but ended up just under 0.1 of a second shy in P12.
Nico Hulkenberg was 12th to split the two
McLarens, with Fernando Alonso in P14. Romain
Grosjean was 15th for Haas ahead of team-mate
Esteban Gutierrez.
Q1 saw the elimination of Renault’s Kevin
Magnussen in P17, followed by team-mate Jolyon
Palmer, Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, Manor’s Pascal
Wehrlein, team-mate Rio Haryanto and the second
Sauber of Marcus Ericsson.