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Valtteri Bottas defeated his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in pole position as Mercedes dominated the qualifiers at the Russian Grand Prix.
Bottas edged Hamilton by 0.145 seconds after the world champion made mistakes in the midfield during his two rounds in the last top 10 shots on goal.
Hamilton rival Sebastian Vettel will start third but the Ferrari was 0.556 seconds behind the pace.
Kimi Raikkonen failed to beat Vettel with an error in the last corner.
Did Hamilton drop the post?
Hamilton seemed to be a good choice for pole position after dominating the first and second qualifying sessions and setting breathtaking times in the first sector in his two rounds of the final session.
But both rounds failed in the second sector, while Bottas held on to just barely 0.004s on his first pass, a margin he extended when Hamilton failed his second pass after another error.
Bottas pole was only his second of the season and he was delighted, but he was already worried for the start of the race.
He remembered last year when he started third but pole position Vettel had to take the lead in the first corner before winning.
"Of course, it feels good," he said. "It has been a long time [since Austria this year]. I knew it had been a good track for me and I managed to make good qualifying rounds. The car was really good. "
Hamilton said: "Congratulations to Valtteri, he was very fast all weekend, my tours were not special at all, but you can not always do things properly. does a fantastic job and I'm really happy with both. "
What happened to Ferrari?
Vettel arrived in Russia, knowing that he had to beat Hamilton and reduce the 40-point gap that the Mercedes driver had opened with three wins in the previous four races.
Both teams have made significant aerodynamic improvements to their cars this weekend, but that of Mercedes seems to be more efficient and Ferrari has lagged about 0.5 seconds on the pace.
Vettel said: "They were very fast, it should have been a little closer to the gap, but not enough to be a threat.
"I had a small mistake in the last sector, but I'm pretty happy, the car seemed perfect and it makes me very positive for Sunday."
"I just talked to Valtteri and I reminded her of what happened last year, maybe we can reverse the situation, it depends a lot on the initial jump, and then we'll see what we can do for the turn 1. But if there is a gap, go for it. "
Clever Renault?
The Red Bulls were not involved after the first session, as they will start from the back because of penalties imposed by the grid for excessive use of the engine.
This gave the smaller teams the opportunity to take an unusually high starting position, and the winner of the battle was Haas pilot Kevin Magnussen, who defeated Esteban Ocon of Force India in fifth place with 0.232 seconds .
Sauber driver Charles Leclerc finished seventh, ahead of Sergio Perez's second Force India and fellow drivers Haas and Sauber, Romain Grosjean and Marcus Ericsson.
But all these teams may have missed a lap and have been overtaken by Renault.
The French team decided not to participate in the second qualifying, which allowed them to win the 11th and 12th places on the grid.
This leaves them with the choice of free tires, while the Haas, Sauber and Force India drivers have to start with the fragile super soft tires used in the second qualification.
For Renault, this could be a considerable advantage, as they can start on ultra-soft or soft, more durable tires, while the future will find that their hyper-softs quickly lose their pace.
It was a tactic that McLaren used to perfection to give Fernando Alonso seventh place in Singapore last time, and Renault hopes to do the same in Sochi.
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