Max Verstappen reached the pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix with an immense lap here. However, his mastery of the circuit contrasted sharply with the unfortunate performance of Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who finished the day with their cars on the barriers.
For Mercedes, a long weekend awaits them after suffering a disastrous afternoon in Spielberg. Hamilton crashed in Q3, with a big impact and shortly afterwards Russell did the same. Fortunately, neither of them was injured after unusual mistakes. Hamilton finished 10th and Russell fifth. A setback for the team hoping to take advantage of the improvement shown at the British GP.
Hamilton was heartbroken and unable to explain how he had lost the car. “In the end I’m incredibly disappointed in myself,” he said. “I’m sorry for the team, everyone worked very hard to assemble this car and I never like to damage it or damage it again. I think we were fighting for about the first three and I have no answer. I just lost the behind turn seven and that was it. “
With the weekend hosting the sprint race format on Saturday, which will mark the grid for Sunday’s GP, they have a chance to come back and reclaim seats as their car looked competitive but a long night begs the Mercedes mechanics .
Verstappen, in excellent form at his team’s home Grand Prix, made a great final race which ensures he will come out on top of the grid for the speed race. The Red Bull driver overtook the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in second and third place. In a very competitive session, the top three were separated by eight hundredths of a second. Sergio Bull of Red Bull was fourth but is under investigation for exceeding track limits during his hot lap in Q2 and may drop places.
Verstappen set the pace in his first hot race in Q3 with a time of 1 min 5.092 seconds. However, behind him, Hamilton had a surprise. Entering the seventh lap he lost the rearguard, tried to correct but was unable to hold on. He came out and had a side impact that could have damaged his gearbox and needed a replacement.
Sign up for The Recap, our weekly email with publisher choices.
Some of the Dutch contingent fiercely partisan of the crowd applauded his misfortune, and when the session resumed, Russell quickly followed Hamilton toward the barriers. He came in hot on bend 10, turned and slid back.
He also disliked what he saw as a driver error in pushing too hard. “I wouldn’t say [it was] a lucky escape. There’s nothing lucky or lucky in making a mistake like this, ”he said.“ I could have been fourth. I was a dozen higher up my lap and I went there. It could have been third, but we have to see how much harm has been done, so I’m sorry for the team and the garage. “
With a red flag again, the final runs were a tense one-lap closing and Leclerc had the advantage only of Verstappen to pull off a powerful final sector, especially the last two curves, to set a time of 1 min 4,984 , two hundredths ahead of Ferrari.
Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher were seventh and eighth for Haas. Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso in sixth and ninth for Alpine.
Valtteri Bottas was in 13th place where the sprint race will begin. However, after grabbing a new engine unit, the consequent sanctions mean the Sunday GP will start from the bottom of the grid. Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda were 11th and 14th behind AlphaTauri. Alex Albon was 12th for Williams and Lando Norris 15th for McLaren.
Daniel Ricciardo was 16th with McLaren. Guanyu Zhou finished 18th with Alfa Romeo, his first time in a competitive session since he suffered a major fall at Silverstone last week. Nicholas Latifi was 19th for Williams. Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll on the 17th and 20th for Aston Martin.