The Saturday in F1 Austrian GP was hectic but Max Verstappen not only took the sprint win, but also took a fine pole with a good margin.
It was a hectic Saturday in F1 Austrian GP at Red Bull Ring with the sprint race in the morning. But Red Bull and Max Verstappen were on-song all-through. Even though there was resistance from McLaren in the sprint, the Dutchman came through to win.
He backed it up with a fine pole in the afternoon by nearly half a second over McLaren’s Lando Norris, who was slightly downbeat, not just due to his health but also by losing out to the Dutchman twice and even dropping behind Oscar Piastri in the sprint.
The Australian was embarrassed himself with his track limits in Q3 which cost him third on the grid. McLaren did appeal but it was always going to be disallowed. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez did not have a great outing either after tough qualifying.
He used up all of his soft tyres to make it into Q3 and was left with none to be only eighth. Both the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers managed to end up ahead of him despite that off from Charles Leclerc right at the end of the final qualifying.
But Ferrari were not too pleased as Carlos Sainz highlighted the bouncing issue post the introduction of its updates. While George Russell felt good enough, Lewis Hamilton thought it was the maximum for him as they lacked downforce. It was another low-key qualifying for the Aston Martin pair to be out in Q1 and Q2 respectively.
Verstappen: “I think the whole session went really well. The car was in a better window. I could push a bit more, rely on the grip of the car, the balance. It was very enjoyable. I was just trying to progress through Q1 without using a new set. And that worked. And then from there, we just tried to fine-tune the balance here and there a little bit. But every lap that I did was feeling good. And then it’s all about, of course, trying to just nail every corner. It’s been a while that I’ve felt like this in the car and also looking at the gap. The last few races, I’ve always been very close in front or behind.
“So this was definitely very positive, I think, for the team. I mean, of course, it’s a short lap, and the gap was quite big. But at the other end, I also felt really good with the car, and the balance was there. So then you can really push and attack the corners. And I guess that then made it such a gap. that’s, of course, something that I hope is going to be good as well. But I will find out tomorrow. I felt like, yeah, the car just improved a bit balance wise, which hopefully will help the tyres tomorrow as well, because it’s still going to be a hot and long race. So you really have to look after the tyres. And that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Norris: “It was pretty good. It was pretty good, but not amazing. Just a bit trickier today than it was yesterday for, you know, wind and conditions and stuff like that. But relatively we were much further back, closer to the Mercedes and Ferraris than we were relative to Max. So a bit of it was in my lap. Like, definitely yesterday I probably did a better lap and made up for some of it and I think today there was at least one or two tenths in just doing a very good lap from my side, but definitely not enough to get Max. So he did a good job and Red Bull made a good step from where they were yesterday. And clearly, yeah, they were a lot quicker than what we could achieve today. So still P2, still front row. And yeah, hopefully we can turn that into something good tomorrow.
“Kind of the same, but not! Yeah, just tidying up a few things from before. Yeah, I know what I did wrong, it was obviously very clear. But from the pace advantage Max had today, that’s probably going to carry into something tomorrow as well. So I’m not sure even today if I had a perfect run of things and if it was just between Max and myself, I’m not sure I probably would have had the pace to quite keep up with what Max was able to do. Then into quali today, it showed that they were just a pretty good step ahead of us. So we’ll see. It’s another day. Things can change and conditions are going to be very warm again. So the races have been good to us lately. It’s been one of our strengths relative to qualifying. So excited to see what we can do.”
Russell: “It felt a good session, similar to Lando. I think the gap to Max was bigger than we expected. We made a few changes with the car, which I think will help us tomorrow. And then that last lap in Q3 was all a bit messy. I had to let quite a few people by on my out lap. And then during the lap, I could just see dust everywhere and gravel on the track. And that’s pretty frustrating as a driver when you go through a corner, you just see gravel everywhere. So there’s a bit more in it, but really pleased to end up P3, not too sure where Oscar got his lap deleted. And hopefully we can fight for the podium tomorrow. I think it’s a bit more challenging here. I think these guys always get their elbows out.
“So maybe this time it’s sit back and watch it all take place. But no, I think last week I lost a lot of time battling with Lando and probably focused too much on the guys ahead of me. And ultimately that cost me the position to Lewis and almost with Charles as well. So as I said, I think the race is behind us tomorrow. I think Lando and Oscar seem a little bit quicker than us. Obviously Max is down the road at the moment. So I don’t know where Oscar ended up finishing, but I’m confident Lewis and I can probably beat the Ferraris tomorrow and hopefully hold up Oscar’s progress. Where did he qualify? He was seventh, OK. But yeah, it’s a long race, high degradation, anything can happen.
Leclerc: “It’s frustrating because, whenever you know you have the potential to do well and you do a mistake yourself, it always hurts, but it’s like this. It’s not a disaster. P7 is not good, I think a P3 was possible. Turn 1 and 3 was really, really good in my last lap. I was two tenths faster than my [previous] lap and then I did a mistake in Turn 4. [I] tried even more to catch back some time in Turn 6, lost it, tried the same in Turn 9, lost it… It’s life. I think it paid off more than it hurt this year by pushing that way in qualifying. Today it bit me. I’m a bit disappointed, especially because with the team we had two or three races where we had a tough time, and I feel like today was an opportunity to be back in the top three, but I didn’t do a good job on that second lap.
“But the first lap on scrubbed tyres was really good. I think it’s looking better than what it looked for this morning, because we are in a different configuration that should help a little bit more the race pace. I’m looking forward to it and we’ll see where we are tomorrow. I think Lando and Max is not going to be possible tomorrow. They are too fast this weekend. I think Oscar behind is going to be tricky, but he’s starting behind [in P7] so maybe we can keep that position. With the Mercedes we’ve been close all weekend, but I feel like, if we do everything perfect, we can beat them.”
Piastri: “For me, that was probably the best Turn 6 I took. I was right to the limit of the track, I think that’s what everyone wants to see. Again, we’ve spent so much effort trying to get rid of these problems… there is no reason this corner should be an issue for track limits. Especially when you stay on the track, like I did. Or, not in the gravel. So, yeah, for me obviously being the only one that’s had that happen to me, I’m probably more vocal about it right now. But I think it’s embarrassing that you see us pushing right to the limit of what we can do and if I’m 1cm more I’m in the gravel and completely ruined my lap anyway and it gets deleted.”
Perez: “Unfortunately, we didn’t have the new tyre in Q3. Even when the margins, at times, we were looking within one-tenth from P2. But unfortunately, we arrived into Q3 and we had no new tyres left. The margin, I think it was four-tenths to Lando and I think a big chunk of that is the new tyre, unfortunately. With the strategy we had just for four sets of new Softs so we paid a little bit the price. Q1 was extremely tight, tighter than we predicted. It’s frustrating to burn through the rubber so quickly. Unfortunately, it was not enough for us. We didn’t manage to get the maximum but all the changes that we’ve done, I believe are going to help for tomorrow’s race. We’ll see where we really are tomorrow when degradation kicks in.”
Sainz: “It is a very tricky weekend, we don’t seem like we have nailed recently these last couple of races, we seem to be struggling a little bit. We are still behind Red Bull and McLaren, in the fight with Mercedes in the race, in the sprint and in quali. But we did some changes going into quali that made maybe the car faster, but also a bit more on the edge. And it was very tricky out there to put our lap together but happy because I think we did a decent lap. We are in P4 which if you had told me before qualifying, I would’ve taken it. I think Monaco was always an outlier.
“I was coming from tough weekends in Suzuka and China, and I knew that in these high-downforce, long-corner tracks, more normal tracks, that we are still not at the level we want to be — at the level of Red Bull and McLaren. On top of that, you have the fact that Mercedes has done very good step, and suddenly it looks like it’s a tricky situation. We’ve done our steps, we improved the car, it’s just that the others are improving them very well and obviously it’s a tight race at the top.”
Alonso: “We were expecting a difficult Qualifying session here in Austria and unfortunately fifteenth position was the best we could achieve today. We made some changes to the car between the Sprint Race and Qualifying, and huge credit to the team who worked flat-out to get everything ready. However, we didn’t get much reward for this hard work. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow, we will stay focused and try our best to achieve the maximum result possible.”
While Aston Martin is going down, Alpine is picking up with yet another Top 10 finish in F1 qualifying courtesy Esteban Ocon this time. Pierre Gasly did not feel good in Q2 but he is close to points. Their direct rival Haas too is close by after Nico Hulkenberg’s exploits.
Even though he had two investigations against him, the German turned around the SQ1 exit to make it in Q3, as teammate Kevin Magnussen couldn’t string a good lap together. The Visa Cash App RB pair made it in Q2 in a better show, but missed out just.
Daniel Ricciardo was marginal from Top 10, while Yuki Tsunoda didn’t get a good lap in. On top of that, he had a fine for foul words on the radio. The heads were down a bit at Stake F1 Team and Williams after their double Q1 exit.
Ocon: “It’s been a busy day in Austria with the Sprint Race followed by Qualifying. It was always going to be a tough ask to score points as only the top eight score in the Sprint and we had to use an old set of tyres in the race. I’m pleased with our Qualifying performance where we were in Q3 again, like yesterday. That said, today’s session was much closer in the midfield with very small margins separating a number of cars. We have consistently been at the top end of the pack and in the mix for the top ten. In the end, we settle for tenth place, though, really, only ninth place was possible as the top four teams are too far in front. We decided to use three new sets of Softs in Q2 in order to ensure we advanced through to Q3 and that meant we could not fight Nico for ninth. The goal tomorrow is to hold onto the top ten and score more points.”
Hulkenberg: “Q1 was still a bit of a stretch but it was a process of getting my feeling with the car progressively better. In Q2 we kept finding time, especially on the final lap when it really mattered, and that brought us into the top 10. In Q3 it wasn’t perfect, but either way, the top eight cars in front of us are not in our race tomorrow, so I think we maximized everything. This morning Kevin had very decent pace, he was actually able to drive away from Aston Martin and Alpine, so I don’t think we have to be afraid or hide, I think we have a decent package for everyone in the midfield.”
Ricciardo: “We knew that it would have been hard to get into the points in the Sprint, but it was important to race and learn for tomorrow. There are some positives from the battles we had this morning and the way the car responded was not too bad. Of course, it’s frustrating to miss out on Q3 by just a few milliseconds this afternoon, but at the same time, it’s a more positive one as I think we made some progress since yesterday and it’s something we have to be proud of. I think we still need to find something a little bit extra for tomorrow but today’s qualifying put us in a much better position for the race. It’s going to be a longer one with pit stops and tyre differences, so there’s no reason to believe we can’t be a top ten car tomorrow.”
Albon: “When you start a Sprint weekend not being in a happy place with the car, you’ve got more catching up to do. We’ve been making bigger changes than we normally do all weekend and I think we’ve done a decent job for the most part, however I’m just struggling a lot with balance, especially in Turn 3 and 4. My lap for Q2, Lewis let me pass like normal, but I think I got some dirty air and locked up, so this was the difference with it being such fine margins for us. Either way, I’m happy with how we turned the car around, however we need to understand where the balance is going ahead of the tomorrow.”
Bottas: “It hasn’t been the easiest Saturday for us. We knew it was always going to be difficult to get into the points from the positions where we were starting from in the Sprint, so we opted to treat it as a test session ahead of Sunday. Due to the extremely hot temperatures on track, we suffered some overheating on the tyres, which definitely didn’t help our cause. We quite lacked pure pace, too, but still managed to try out different settings and learn a few things, which will hopefully help us tomorrow.
“Unfortunately, qualifying was once again a difficult one for us; we still managed to make the car slightly better in terms of lap balance, but when it comes to pure performance, we are not quite there on this track. We made some progress, and it seemed like we had a chance to get better, but we eventually couldn’t achieve that. Unfortunately, that’s how it is today – but there is still tomorrow to go, and we are not going to give up. We will try the best we can during the race, squeezing everything out of the car and looking for any opportunity that may arise.”
Here’s how F1 Austrian GP qualifying panned out
Here’s how F1 Austrian GP sprint panned out
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