Max Verstappen gives another masterful driving lesson, Lando Norris confirms himself as the Flying Dutchman’s main rival, George Russell makes Mercedes shine.
And the Ferraris disappoint, with Carlos Sainz falling behind and Charles Leclerc unlucky and failing to make the time in the key moment.
The qualifying sessions for the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring have given the first verdicts for the Austrian GP weekend, the 11th round of the Formula 1 world championship, which is not going to be easy for the Red drivers. It was the team principal, Frederic Vasseur, who used the term “disappointed, for the bad performance and for having a fifth and a tenth car” on the grid, far from Red Bull and McLaren and also behind Mercedes. The inconvenience to Leclerc was not needed.
The Monegasque had his anti-stall system kick in while he was queuing in the pit lane to start Q3, forcing him to move to the right and repeat the procedure. When he finally got going, he failed to cross the line to start his flying lap before the checkered flag, leaving him without a time and therefore tenth. Tomorrow’s short race will not give him time to invent something, Vasseur stressed, because “there are no pit stops, no strategy, you just have to push. I don’t think we’ll even have a choice of compound, it’ll just be one. Push and get the points.” “We weren’t extremely strong, but we could have done better than tenth place for sure,” Leclerc said, “so this result is a bit disappointing. We’ll look at what happened and tomorrow we’ll try to do a good Sprint race and get back in front.” McLaren is hot on Ferrari’s heels in the constructors’ championship and in addition to Norris in great form today, Oscar Piastri also had his say, taking third place on the grid right behind his teammate and catching up with them will not be easy for Sainz, squeezed between the Mercedes of Russell and Lewis Hamilton, and even less so for the very distant Leclerc. What is worrying, however, is the four tenths of a gap the Spaniard has on Verstappen, an enormity on a track with a minute and a little more per lap. Verstappen delighted his fans by setting a time of 1’04”686 on the circuit owned by his team, preceding Norris by 93 thousandths, while Sergio Perez with the other Red Bull did not go beyond seventh place, ahead of the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, two quarrelsome drivers who will not roll out the red carpet to help Sainz’s comeback. “It’s nice to be first here in front of all my home fans and in our home Grand Prix,” said the Dutchman, smiling, after qualifying. “It’s been a good day so far and it feels good to drive the car. It feels well balanced and we just needed a few adjustments, so everything is going well. I feel relaxed. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
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