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30 FERRARI'S Charles Leclerc took pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix as world champion Lewis Hamilton was hit with a three-place grid pen- alty. Leclerc, 21, set two laps quick enough for pole and ended the session 0.259 seconds clear of Hamilton. The Mercedes driver was subsequently penalised for "unnecessarily impeding" Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton will now start fifth, with Red Bull's Max Verstap- pen promoted to second and Valtteri Bottas third. Britain's Lando Norris will line up in fourth place, the McLaren rookie initially hav- ing qualified in sixth but the beneficiary of both Hamilton's penalty and a five-place drop for Haas' Kevin Magnussen, who requires a gearbox change. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel failed to go out in the final part of qualifying because of prob- lem with the air-pressure line to his engine and his team had to withdraw him after failing to fix it in time. He will start ninth. Hamilton falls foul of stewards The incident involving Ham- ilton and Raikkonen came early in the first part of qualifying, as the Finn was on a quick lap and encountered the cruising Brit- on at the top of the hill on the approach to Turn Three. Hamilton appeared to see Raikkonen late and went straight on at the corner, forc- ing the Alfa Romeo to back off. Raikkonen gestured at the Mercedes driver as he passed and came on the radio to report that he had been "completely blocked". In explaining the penalty, the governing body FIA's race stewards said that Hamilton had "just come out of the pits and was informed of the cars approaching, including car #7 [Raikkonen]". The statement added: "Al- though car 44 tried to take evasive action when he became aware of car 7 approaching on a fast lap, it was not sufficient to avoid impeding car 7, which then had to abort the lap." Hamilton, who also received one penalty point on his li- cence, pre-empted the official announcement of his grid drop by several minutes by writing "3 place penalty..." on an Insta- gram post. In a separate post, he con- ceded that he "totally deserved the penalty today and have no problem accepting it". He added: "Was a mistake on my behalf and I take full re- sponsibility for it. It wasn't in- tentional. Anyway, tomorrow is another day and an oppor- tunity to rise. These things are sent to try us." Leclerc in imperious form Hamilton sounded on edge throughout qualifying and looked to be struggling, but pulled a lap out of the bag in the end for a place on the front row, albeit one he would later lose. "Charles has been quick all weekend," Hamilton said. "We have not really been able to keep up with him." Leclerc has looked the faster Ferrari driver for much of the weekend and delivered on his potential to take his second pole. After his first, in Bahrain ear- lier this season, he went on to dominate the race before an engine problem in the closing laps cost him victory. "I'm extremely happy," Leclerc said. "We have been competitive since second prac- tice but it is always difficult to do the lap at the time. It is just a shame for Seb. We should have two cars close to one and two." Hamilton's edginess in the car was down to a lack of pace for Mercedes - particularly on the straights - and his engineers failing to put him out behind other cars so he could benefit from a slipstream. "Positioning was so difficult," he said. "I was always at the front and never getting the slip- stream. Luckily on the last run I got a decent position." Getting a tow from another car was key for Mercedes in Austria to minimise Ferrari's advantage on the straights. It has also a key part of qualify- ing at some races in 2019, after regulation changes to make the front and rear wings bigger sig- nificantly increased drag. maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 JUNE 2019 SPORTS FORMULA 1 Austrian Grand Prix: Leclerc powers to pole as Hamilton demoted