
Lewis Hamilton achieved his fifty-four career pole position at the Red Bull Ring, recovering from his tyre blistering problems in final practice to top a rain-affected and dramatic qualifying session.
The drivers began Q3 on intermediate tyres after rain fell heavily in Spielberg at the end of Q2, but everyone had to switch to dry tyres for the last few minutes as the track conditions improved.
Hamilton ended the session 0.543 seconds quicker than Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, but Rosberg will drop to seventh following a crash in final practice which resulting in a gearbox change.
Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India was the first car to switch to slicks in Q3 and ended the session with the third quickest time, ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari, which also carries a five-place grid penalty.
Jenson Button was a superb fifth quickest for McLaren-Honda and will start third on the grid thanks to Rosberg’s and Vettel’s penalties.
This was Button’s first appearance in Q3 since 2014 and to qualify on row two is a rewarding effort for the Woking-based team.
Kimi Raikkonen was 0.001 seconds slower than Button and yet, just ahead of Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull.
Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Felipe Massa rounded out the top ten.
That rain during the final minutes of Q2 prevented Mercedes matching the Red Bull and Ferrari strategy of setting faster times on super-soft tyres, meaning they can start the race on those sets.
Mercedes tried to respond after it used ultra-softs at the beginning of Q2, before the rain came, but the track was too wet when it sent its cars out on super-softs, so Hamilton and Rosberg will start on the less suitable softest compound.
The bad weather also protected Button from possible elimination, as he made Q3 for the first time since the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix by edging ahead of Esteban Gutierrez’s Haas, which finished the session in P11.
Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein starred with the tenth best time in Q1, before going P12 in Q2 – equalling Manor’s best qualifying result in the sport.
Romain Grosjean ran off track during his first run in Q2 on old tyres, and the subsequent rain condemned him to P13, 0.150 seconds adrift of Wehrlein.
Fernando Alonso was a distant P14 in the McLaren-Honda, after mistakenly doing his first Q2 run on old tyres.
He finished the session ahead only of the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez’s Force India, who both sat out Q2 due to engine and suspension failures respectively.
The climax to the first part of qualifying was heavily affected by two separate incidents for Toro Rosso.
First, Daniil Kvyat crashed after suffering suspension failure over the exit kerb at Turn 8, which caused a red flag that meant rivals had to abort runs.
Then team-mate Sainz suffered his problem exiting the pits after the restart, which caused yellow flags and rendered the final minutes largely redundant.
However, Hulkenberg improved his lap time while the yellow flags were out, so his front-row start is under threat from an investigation into how much he backed off when passing the incident.
Sainz remained P11, while Renault pairing Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer stayed P17 and P18, behind Alonso’s McLaren.
Rio Haryanto ended up P19 for Manor, improving under the yellow flags but not in the first sector and not by enough to gain any places.
Kvyat ended up P20, narrowly ahead of the Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr, the latter of which also improved under the yellows but again not by enough to improve position.

Qualifying standings, Austrian Grand Prix:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m07.922s
2 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m09.285s
3 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1m09.900s
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m09.901s
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m09.980s
6 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m10.440s
7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m08.465s*
8 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Renault 1m11.153s
9 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m09.781s*
10 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m11.977s
11 Esteban Gutierrez Haas-Ferrari 1m07.578s
12 Pascal Wehrlein Manor-Mercedes 1m07.700s
13 Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 1m07.850s
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1m08.154s
15 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Ferrari No time
16 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes No time
17 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1m07.941s
18 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1m07.965s
19 Rio Haryanto Manor-Mercedes 1m08.026s
20 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m08.409s
21 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1m08.418s
22 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1m08.446s
*Five-place grid penalty for changing gearbox



















