Max Verstappen took pole position ahead of the Sprint in a dramatic qualifying session on Friday evening, with the two Mercedes drivers colliding, in the Red Bull Ring.
Sunny skies welcomed the riders after the morning rain and a wetland before the Austrian Grand Prix, with the classification marking the grid for Saturday’s Sprint, which in turn will set the grid for at the Grand Prix on Sunday.
Mercedes entered Q3 perhaps hoping to get the pole, as Lewis Hamilton was third in the previous session, but the seven-time champion entered the barriers of turn 7 to remove a red flag in the middle of the turn of the first 10 to leave it a provisional 10.
Teammate George Russell (P5) followed suit minutes later with a turn and then crashed into the final corner, culminating in a miserable afternoon for the Silver Arrows.
After the second stop of Q3, there was an impressive pole fight, Verstappen raised the proverbial roof of the Red Bull Ring with his last flight effort, leaving Leclerc second by just 0.029 seconds and Carlos Sainz third with 0.082 seconds.
1 Max Verstappen VER Red Bull Racing 1: 04.984 2 Charles Leclerc LEC Ferrari 1: 05.013 3 Carlos Sainz SAI Ferrari 1: 05.066 4 Sergio Pérez PER Red Bull Racing 1: 05.404 5 George Russell RUS Mercedes 1: 05.431
Sergio Perez finished fourth for Red Bull with 0.420 seconds, with Russell fifth despite crashing.
Next on the board was Esteban Ocon of Alpine; his teammate Fernando Alonso was ninth. Among them were Kevin Magnussen in seventh place and Mick Schumacher eighth in an impressive performance for Haas.
AlphaTauri suffered a double elimination in Q2, with Pierre Gasly wasting less than a hundredth of a second and Yuki Tsunoda furious to provisionally finish 14th. Alex Albon placed 12th for Williams ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas in 13th place, while Lando Norris was 15th for McLaren after eliminating numerous laps in Q2 to exceed the track limits. .
Daniel Ricciardo will start behind his teammate in the Sprint after being eliminated in 16th place. Lance Stroll was next on the board, 17th for Aston Martin, as he shared the penultimate row with Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu on Saturday.
Williams’ Nicholas Latifi finished 19th for the Sprint, with Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel last and 20th also with a lap marked by the track limits.
Q1: Ferrari set the pace when Ricciardo and Aston Martin retire
The teams did not waste time going out for Q1, the track full of activity under a clear blue sky.
With eight minutes to go, Verstappen was briefly in the lead, but had his lap marked, leaving teammate Pérez first, ahead of Alonso’s Alpine and Ferrari’s Leclerc in a match between first three for only 0.057 seconds. Sainz was fourth after receiving his first flyer over the limits of the track.
With Verstappen and Hamilton yet to set a time at the time, and with track conditions still poised to increase, there was plenty of time on the table: both Williams (Albon going wide on turn 9) and Aston Martins at the descent area. with the championship leader.
Verstappen got his time with five minutes to go thanks to a 1m lap 05.852s. However, the Ferraris lowered it shortly after, Sainz was second and Leclerc first by 0.433 according to the third Red Bull driver.
Leclerc led Q1
Alonso was fourth ahead of Hamilton, while Red Bull’s Perez finished sixth ahead of Russell’s other Mercedes.
With a new engine (part of his existing group) after his stoppage in FP1, the McLaren driver Norris finished eighth in Q1 ahead of the duo Haas (led by Magnussen over Schumacher in 10th place) and Bottas in the 11th for Alfa Romeo.
Tsunoda of AlphaTauri and Ocon in the Alpine were next in order, behind them the Williams of Albon.
AlphaTauri driver Gasly was the last man to reach Q2 with 0.024 s over McLaren’s Ricciardo in 16th place. Nor did Aston Martin progress to the next session, Vettel 20th with a lap time eliminated while Stroll came out better in 17th position.
Among them were Zhou from Alfa Romeo, 18th, and Williams driver, Latifi, 19th.
Noqueats: Ricciardo, Stroll, Zhou, Latifi, Vettel
Vettel begins one final run for the Sprint
Q2: Leclerc and Verstappen keep Hamilton at bay
Mercedes’ Hamilton topped the charts at the start of Q2, his teammate Russell third, while Verstappen split the pair, 0.033 seconds behind the pace. That left the Ferraris in P4 and P5, but there was still time on the clock, time to find and seven drivers still to make a quick lap.
With five minutes to go, Bottas was the driver at risk in 10th position with Pérez from Red Bull 0.139 seconds after coming out well on turn 9 and Norris after eliminating two lap times thanks to separate excursions on turn 1 and turn 4 to stay last. Albon and the AlphaTauri couple were the other riders at risk of elimination. Meanwhile, at the helm, Hamilton had improved to keep Verstappen at 0.093 seconds … for now.
Leclerc and Verstappen improved, the first 0.087 seconds ahead of the second, while Hamilton was third with a margin of 0.188 seconds to keep Sainz fourth. Russell completed the top five and Perez left the relegation zone in the sixth.
The two Haas riders advanced to Q3, Magnussen seventh and Schumacher 10th, with Ocon and Alonso making a double appearance in Q3 for Alpine in eighth and ninth, respectively.
Gasly improved but only to 11th (losing Q3 by 0.009s), with Albon then, and Bottas 13th. Tsunoda was happy on turn 1 and felt his frustration when he got a 14ª provisional position for the Sprint, with the last one Norris had to do three laps. “I’m afraid to brake,” the McLaren driver said.
Noqueats: Gasly, Albon, Bottas, Tsunoda, Norris
Hamilton put his hat in the ring in Q2
Q3: Both Mercedes crash before the Verstappen pole
No one rushed to set the time in Q3, but it soon became apparent that Perez could have come out on turn 8 in his successful effort to get out of Q2, which led him to be called up to the Commissioners later. of the session.
Leclerc led Russell and Ocon from the start, while Hamilton backed away in his second effort (almost back in a fast-moving Leclerc) despite a first purple sector, before a roar from the creepy orange sea of fans welcome to Verstappen. And the Dutchman surrendered, taking the provisional pole by 0.091 s over Leclerc, with Sainz third for Ferrari ahead of Pérez in P4 for Red Bull.
Then came the red flag and the break, for Hamilton. An oversteer on turn 7 saw him skate on the gravel, the right side of his W13 hitting the barriers. He left, but will start a provisional 10th for the Sprint.
After a long pause, the session resumed with about five minutes left. But there would be another red flag. And this time for the other Mercedes driver, Russell pulls away from this one, who turned and crashed into the last corner to stop the process with two and a half minutes on the clock.
What followed was an impressive battle for the pole, Sainz firing at the top, Leclerc improving to grab the provisional pole, and then Verstappen beating the two Ferraris in first place, leaving his Monegasque rival just 0.029 seconds behind and the Spaniard 0.082 s back.
Perez was 0.420 seconds (close investigation) behind his teammate in P4, Russell a provisional fifth, and then Ocon sixth for Alpine. The Haas pair put on a brilliant show, Magnussen seventh ahead of Schumacher in eighth, to leave Alonso ninth in the other Alpine.
Scenes of joy in Red Bull’s garage (and grandstands), while Mercedes teams will have a long night ahead of Saturday’s FP2 and Austrian Sprint.
Key quote
Max Verstappen: “It was a very long wait between the two runs and that’s never great. Once you’re in the rhythm, it’s nice to keep going. Also, you know the track temperatures were going down, the wind was changing a little bit. , but in the end, it was a very tight classification, and it’s also a very challenging track to do everything right. There aren’t that many curves, but the ones you have are pretty complicated, it’s very easy to make. of course very …