2020 Eifel Grand Prix - Saturday

2020 Eifel Grand Prix - Saturday

Valtteri and Lewis lock out the front row of the grid for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team at the Nürburgring

  • Valtteri scores the 14th pole position of his F1 career – his third of the 2020 season and first at the Nürburgring
  • Lewis finished two and a half tenths further back in P2, helping the team take its eighth front row lockout of the season and 72nd in F1
  • This result secures Mercedes-Benz power its 400th front row place in F1
  • Lewis and Valtteri will both start the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix on the Soft tyre
  • Imagery of the day is available on our media site. All imagery is rights-free for editorial use.
  • To download all available imagery from today with just one click, please use the following link (please note that imagery will download in a zip folder): Image selection

Driver

Chassis No.

FP3

Q1

Q2

Q3

Valtteri Bottas

F1 W11 EQ Performance /05

P1

7 Laps

P2

6 Laps

P3

6 Laps

P1

1:26.573

Soft

1:25.971

Medium,
Soft

1:25.269

Soft,

Soft

Lewis Hamilton

F1 W11 EQ Performance /01

P2

6 Laps

P3

6 Laps

P1

6 Laps

P2

1:26.620

Soft

1:25.390

Medium,

Soft

1:25.525

Soft,

Soft

Valtteri Bottas

It feels great to be on pole position here and I really enjoyed that session. It’s such a nice feeling when you get it with your last chance in Q3. That final lap was spot on. I was struggling a little in the first sector beforehand, but I managed to get it right in the end. Obviously, it was pretty tricky with just one practice session and the cold conditions, so getting the tyres in the sweet spot on the outlap was really important and I managed to get them in the window. It’s a new day tomorrow and is going to be an interesting race, especially with the lack of running we’ve had here and the temperatures. I’ve only got one goal for tomorrow, so hopefully I can have a good start and we’ll see what happens from there.

Lewis Hamilton

This is an amazing circuit and it’s great to be back here, but it just wasn’t my day today. The car felt good in Q2 but in Q3, I lost a little bit of pace so we’ll look through the data to see where I could find more time. Valtteri did a great job out there so congratulations to him. I think there will be lots of opportunities in tomorrow’s race, we’ll need to see what happens with the weather and what the temperatures are like. How the tyres behave will be crucial, as will the start and if there are any Safety Cars. It’s still all to play for, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow and I’ll get my head down tonight to make sure we’re in the best shape possible.

Toto Wolff

We couldn’t ask for much better than a one-two on the grid at the Nürburgring, in the Baltic temperatures that we are all experiencing this weekend. It was very close with Max and at some stages during that Qualifying session, it looked like they may have had the edge over us. But it was a perfect performance from Valtteri around here, he did a brilliant job to secure pole position for tomorrow and Lewis wasn’t far behind to lock out the front row. It puts us in a good position for the race, but there are still some unknowns due to the limited running we’ve had and these cold temperatures. So, that should make tomorrow a fun race and I’m excited to see how it plays out.

Andrew Shovlin

Well done to Valtteri for a great pole lap, he certainly saved his best till last. It’s great to be able to start with both cars on the front row. Lewis was putting in some really strong laps earlier in the session, but like Max, his best was in the second session and he wasn’t finding the same grip when it really mattered in the final session. It’s been a busy day for us; the morning programme was pretty packed with a mix of long runs at high fuel and low fuel work. Both drivers were happy with the car balance, but the cold conditions were making it quite a challenge to generate the tyre temperature we need on a single lap. That remained one of the factors in Qualifying that was causing the pace to jump up and down a bit. The race itself will be a bit of a voyage of discovery, we don’t know how fast our competitors are on a long run and we don’t really know how the tyres will perform.  The Soft at least seemed to hold up pretty well this morning, so we’re happy to be starting the race on it but we’ll be looking at degradation during the first stint to understand whether it’s a one or two-stop race.

2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - Steve Etherington
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2020 Eifel Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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