Austrian Grand Prix 2016 qualifying results: Lewis Hamilton takes pole at Red Bull Ring

Lewis Hamilton beat teammate Nico Rosberg by over half a second for pole position at the Red Bull Ring’s Austrian Grand Prix. Rosberg qualified in second place but will actually start the race from seventh place due to a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.

The change was required after Rosberg crashed out of the third practice. Rosberg could have been starting much worse though, as he nearly wasn’t ready for qualifying. Hamilton’s Mercedes mechanics were called across the garage to assist in getting Rosberg ready for action. Rosberg leads Hamilton, the defending champion, by 24 points in the drivers championship.

Nico Hülkenberg of Force India finished in third in qualifying and will start from second due to Rosberg’s penalty. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari qualified in fourth place, but a penalty for him will drop him as well. That means Jenson Button of the struggling McLaren team, who qualified in a season-best fifth place, will actually get to start from the second row due to the penalties.

At the end of the qualifying session, Hülkenberg was also under investigation by the stewards for not slowing down enough during yellow caution flags, so the grid could change even further at this point. Kimi Räikkönen of Ferrari and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull will start from fourth and fifth on the grid after the penalties are applied. Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Felipe Massa round out the top 10 on the grid.

Wet conditions on the track made things tough for everyone, but a mistake from Fernando Alonso’s garage that sent him onto the track with used tires made things much, much worse. Alonso will be happy his teammate is starting from the second row, but he was unable to put in a good time in qualifying due to the tire issue coupled with rain and yellow caution flags later in the session.

Alonso will start 14th on the grid.

The end of first qualifying saw Felipe Nasr, Marcus Ericsson, Daniil Kvyat, Rio Haryanto, Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen eliminated. The second qualifying session saw the field lose Sergio Pérez, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Romain Grosjean, Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Gutiérrez.

Both Pérez and Kvyat had suspension failures during qualifying. Kvyat had a huge crash but came out of it without injury after his suspension failed. Pérez was lucky and managed to get back to the pits after his suspension issue. Rosberg’s crash in the final practice session was also deemed a suspension issue. Excessive loads caused by kerb design at the Red Bull Ring seem to be to blame.

Below is the full results from qualifying, without grid penalties applied: