Bottas beats Hamilton to POLE at Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

Valtteri Bottas beats Lewis Hamilton to pole position for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, with Red Bull’s Vertsappen starting third.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is another of the hastily cobbled-together dates on the 2020 F1 Grand Prix calendar after Covid wrecked the normal plans, but despite the name it’s quite familiar F1 territory as it’s held at Imola in Italy. Although F1’s not been there since the San Marino GP in 2006.

New to the calendar, and probably not to be repeated after this year, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix has nevertheless divvied up a staring grid in qualifying which looks rather familiar – it’s a Mercedes front row.

But this time round it’s Valetteri Bottas on pole as he pipped Lewis Hamilton by 0.1s, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen qualifying in third spot, but almost half a second behind the Mercedes cars.

The surprise in qualifying came from Peierre Gasly who drove his AlphaTauri in to fourth place on the grid, with Daniel Ricciardo a solid fifth in the Renault, ahead of Albon in the second Red Bull.

Ferrari didn’t fare particularly well – and will be glad when the 2020 season is finished – with Leclerc only managing seventh (Vettel will start 14th), followed by Kvyat in the AlphaTauri and the McLarens of Norris and Sainz completing the top ten.