Austria Qualifying and Sprint Race Reaction

Written By Race Reaction

Image: Scuderia Ferrari

It was a fourth pole position on the trot and a career 26th for Max Verstappen on Friday, with the session seeing a whopping 47 lap time deletions by the FIA. Only Charles Leclerc and Logan Sargeant managed to keep it within the white lines at Turns 6, 9 and 10 throughout as the flag fell to see the final order for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

The Sprint Race format returned yet again and provided some entertaining racing in mixed conditions, with some Red Bull drama and a photo-finish to top it off. Read until the end for this one!

Let’s run through the best bits, shall we?

Q1

With no sign of forecasted potential rain, Verstappen quickly set the bar right from the get-go, with a 1:05.190 - followed closely by a yellow turned red flag caused by Bottas spinning round at Turn 1. The Red Bull driver would have his P1 lap deleted during the stoppage, temporarily promoting Aussie Oscar Piastri to pole. Max seemed to take this personally by rapidly dethroning the McLaren driver, setting an even faster 1:05.116.

With five minutes of the session remaining, Lando Norris put himself second fastest before yet another lap deletion.

Continuing to impress, Williams’ Alex Albon found himself a very solid P9, a vast nine places ahead of teammate Sargeant, who just wasn’t on the pace to make it through to Q2 despite never once flirting with track limits.

Image: @WilliamsRacing on Twitter

The bottom five was close-knit, with Tsunoda missing out on a safe P14 by 21ms. A struggling De Vries placed last - a huge detriment to his fight to stay in Formula One this season.

The five knocked out in Q1 were:

16th - Yuki Tsunoda

17th - Zhou Guanyu

18th - Logan Sargeant

19th - Kevin Magnussen

20th - Nyck de Vries

Q2

This session saw more trouble for Pérez as he had all three of his flying laps scrubbed off the timing board, demoting him from a respectable P2 all the way down to P15, therefore knocking him out of Q2. The Mexican will want to be making amends for this if he wants to take some of the heat off that he’s been receiving recently!

Verstappen was once again fastest of all, 0.084s ahead of Ferrari’s Sainz, who was only 0.002s quicker than Norris in P3 - an impressive result from the Brit.

Ocon too had a crucial lap deleted, placing him P12 as he joined the bottom-15 club.

Image: media.alpinecars.com

Out, then, in Q2 were:

11th - George Russell

12th - Esteban Ocon

13th - Oscar Piastri

14th - Valtteri Bottas

15th - Sergio Pérez

Q3

Charles Leclerc showed some vigour early on in the session, setting a purple middle sector and putting his Ferrari on the front row behind Verstappen, two-tenths off pole. Max went on to increase this gap by another tenth of a second not too long afterwards.

Norris turned heads once again by temporarily claiming P2, before being taken down a peg by the two Ferraris to end the session in P4  -ahead, mind you, of Lewis Hamilton and both Aston Martin drivers. No easy feat for a youngster! Lando is continuing to stretch his legs and it’s a matter of time before we see his true brilliance come through.

Alex Albon put his foot down in qualifying a skillful P10, the Thai driver really beginning to get comfortable in his Williams FW44.

Max reacted to his pole position with the usual “Not too bad!”

This man is seemingly unaware of the driving excellence he possesses!

Final Qualifying Results

What will the grid for Sunday look like then? It should be exciting! See below:

1 - Max Verstappen (NED)

2 - Charles Leclerc (MON)

3 - Carlos Sainz (ESP)

4 - Lando Norris (GBR)

5 - Lewis Hamilton (GBR)

6 - Lance Stroll (CAN)

7 - Fernando Alonso (ESP)

8 - Nico Hulkenberg (DEU)

9 - Pierre Gasly (FRA)

10 - Alexander Albon (THA)

11 - George Russell (GBR)

12 - Esteban Ocon (FRA)

13 - Oscar Piastri (AUS)

14 - Valtteri Bottas (FIN)

15 - Sergio Pérez (MEX)

16 - Yuki Tsunoda (JPN)

17 - Guanyu Zhou (CHN)

18 - Logan Sargeant (USA)

19 - Kevin Magnussen (DEN)

20 - Nyck De Vries (NED)

Sprint Race

As all 20 drivers hurtled up the hill on intermediate tyres to Turn 1, Pérez muscled out his pole-sitting teammate to claim the lead at a damp Österreichring after getting better traction off the line.

Elbows were well and truly out as the pack made its way to Turn 3 where the Red Bulls clashed once again, with Pérez having to go wide on corner exit to avoid a collision with Verstappen, whilst Norris in P3 was struck with momentary anti-stall, dropping him down a few places. Hulkenberg attempted to capitalise on this at the next corner, but it was at Turn 5 where he executed a daring downhill move around the outside of the no. 11 car, the Mexican snaking left and right with oversteer as his green-ringed Pirelli rubber temporarily broke traction.

It would be eleven laps later, on lap 12, that Checo regained P2 with an identical move on the German.

Mercedes took a chance on the soft compound on lap 16, with Russel acting as the guinea pig, so to speak. McLaren, Williams, Haas, Alpha Tauri and Alfa Romeo all responded by mimicking this decision, albeit with a few medium-runners for good measure.

This choice proved effective, as Russell set the fastest lap of the race.

On the penultimate lap, Hulkenberg made a decisive move into Turn 6 to snatch the final point-scoring position (P8 in a Sprint Race) from Lando Norris and then move on to finish a solid 6th, but that wasn’t all the drama in the dying stages of the race!

The Aston Martin cars of Alonso and Stroll were duking it out for a few corners at the end of the final lap, with Fernando half sticking his nose up the inside at Turn 7, only to pull back out and finish right behind his Canadian teammate in P4 and 5 respectively.

The real nail-biter for those Ocon fans out there came at Turn 10, where he on the intermediates and George Russell on the softs had a drag race to the line, with the Frenchman besting the Brit by a miniscule 0.009s - we were on the edge of our seats!

Final Sprint Race Results

With the second of six Sprint weekends this season complete, we move onto Sunday’s race - at a 30% chance of rain, it’s anyone’s guess how the field could be jumbled up if the Austrian clouds gather over the track.

Here’s the final order for the Sprint Race:

1 - Max Verstappen (+8)

2 - Sergio Pérez (+7)

3 - Carlos Sainz (+6)

4 - Lance Stroll (+5)

5 - Fernando Alonso (+4)

6 - Nico Hulkenberg (+3)

7 - Esteban Ocon (+2)

8 - George Russell (+1)

9 - Lando Norris

10 - Lewis Hamilton

11 - Oscar Piastri

12 - Charles Leclerc

13 - Alexander Albon

14 - Kevin Magnussen

15 - Pierre Gasly

16 - Yuki Tsunoda

17 - Nyck De Vries

18 - Logan Sargeant

19 - Zhou Guanyu

20 - Valtteri Bottas

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