Austrian Qualifying: Mercedes power on top?

There were two Mercedes powered cars on the front row of the grid, as the cars drove in to parc ferme, but they certainly weren't the Works cars. Bottas and Massa looked like they might threaten Hamilton and Rosberg all session, but I'm not sure anyone quite believed they would take both of the top spots. Williams are simply coming alive this season. There may not realistically be enough time for them to attempt a significant challenge on Mercedes, but they might still turn out to be the closest team, come the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. In the Austrian Grand Prix, it'll be interesting to see whether the Mercedes' of Rosberg can fair as well, when he doesn't have a clear path in front of him.

To be fair to Lewis Hamilton, he quite obviously experienced problems, as his rear wheels locked up heavily, under braking. It happened on his final fast lap and it would be difficult to predict whether he would have been able to match the time of Bottas, but just after that Massa bettered his team mate's time and snatched pole position away anyway. There was hope for Mercedes in the shape of Nico Rosberg, but just when we all thought he might ruin the Williams party, he abandoned his fast lap and cruised back to the pits.

Because of his spin and failure to post a lap time, Hamilton starts from ninth on the grid. He's got to be disappointed with that, since it was a problem with his car, and not his team mate's antics, that scuppered his chances. However, he wasn't the only big name to suffer in qualifying, as Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button failed to make it out of Q2 and in to the final top ten shootout. It's not the first time it's happened to these two drivers, even this season, but it's still extremely frustrating for the Mercedes powered McLaren team AND the World Champions, Red Bull. It seems that The Red Bull Ring has not been lucky for Red Bull Racing, so far this weekend. I wonder if they will fair better in the Grand Prix.

The Grid:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:10.292	1:09.239	1:08.759	19
2	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:10.356	1:09.096	1:08.846	19
3	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:09.695	1:08.974	1:08.944	17
4	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:10.405	1:09.479	1:09.285	25
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:10.395	1:09.638	1:09.466	22
6	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:10.081	1:09.473	1:09.515	29
7	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:09.678	1:09.490	1:09.619	21
8	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:10.285	1:09.657	1:10.795	23
9	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:09.514	1:09.092	No time	15
10	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:10.389	1:09.624	No time	23
11	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:10.124	1:09.754		18
12	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:10.252	1:09.780		22
13	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:10.630	1:09.801		15
14	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:10.821	1:09.939		18
15	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:10.161	1:10.073		19
16	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:10.461	1:10.642		21
17	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:10.825			10
18	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:11.349			10
19	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:11.412			9
20	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:11.673			10
21	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:11.775			10
22	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:12.673			11