Last year, the driver who won the Sprint was awarded the honour of pole position. This year, the driver who sets the fastest time in qualifying – which on Sprint weekends takes place on Friday – will be given the accolade. The driver who takes pole position on Friday starts the Sprint event in first position, while the driver who wins the Sprint start P1 in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
With this in mind, the Austrian stands were packed and prepped for the qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. And while this session has been moved from Saturday to Friday, it’s not too different at all to the usual qualifying.
The session was therefore under way for Austrian GP and Yuki Tsunoda led a train of cars out of the pit-lane. Q1 has usually been rather quiet at the start, although we had more action this time due to the limited running on this Sprint weekend. Straight out on track and straight to the front go Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. The Spanish driver had gone fastest with a 1:06.3 but got his time deleted for track limits at the final corner, meaning Charles Leclerc’s 1:06.7 was the early time to beat. Both Ferrari F1-75 cars were on old soft tyres. After having his lap time deleted, Carlos put in another flying lap and moved up to second, sitting just +0.197s from his teammate.
Max Verstappen went fastest by less than a tenth from Sergio Perez and Charles on his first lap – but suffered the same track limits issue as Carlos. Lewis Hamilton went faster for a few moments, but Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen all went faster than the Mercedes man – with the Monegasque the fastest thanks to a 1:05.4. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) Nicholas Latifi (Williams) and Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) were out in Q1.
Verstappen went faster than the two Ferrari cars with a 1:05.568 but there appeared to be three teams in it here as Hamilton hit the front with a 1:05.538 early on in Q2. It was a Hamilton-Verstappen-Russell-Leclerc-Sainz top five and their closest challenger was Fernando Alonso followed by the Haas of Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen, but with only a few minutes left, Charles came back out on softs and went fastest of all with a 1:05.287. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), Alex Albon (Williams), Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) and Lando Norris (McLaren) were eliminated in Q2, as Ferrari junior managed another strong lap to make it through to the final stages of qualifying.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma! Enter the online Puma Store and shop securely! And get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
It hadn’t been as finely poised as this heading into a final shootout many times – if at all – this season. But we could certainly say that three teams hade genuine chances of pole today.
It hadn’t been as finely poised as this heading into a final shootout many times – if at all – this season. But we could certainly say that three teams hade genuine chances of pole today.
Green light for Q3 and it was time for the pole shootout. It was advantage Max Verstappen at the start of Q3, as Charles Leclerc got the ball rolling with a 1:05.183 but the title leader improved that time by a tenth and had provisional pole. Carlos Sainz was third, with Sergio Perez fourth. Elsewhere, Lewis Hamilton backed out of two flying laps as the track got busier and just a few moments later he went off in the middle sector! The Mercedes driver was out of qualifying after pushing on his third fast lap as he went off into the gravel at Turn 7 and into the barriers, making a mess of his Mercedes.
We were then back out on track for the final five minutes of Q3 and it was going to be busy! All nine cars were straight out and looking to set a decent time early on. It was still all to play for at the top of the timesheet. But after just a few moments, there was another red flag: George Russell was putting in a flying lap to improve from 6th position, trying to take a bit more speed which made him spin and go the wall at Turn 10. A really bad ending for Mercedes in this qualifying session.
We had a restart time for the session and there were two-minutes and 31-seconds left on the clock. A three-way shoot out for pole turned once again into a battle only between Ferrari and Red Bull. Just one attempt left for each driver and it was Max Verstappen who claimed pole position for the Austrian GP. Charles was just 0.029 down on his lap time, with Carlos right behind him for tomorrow’s Sprint Race.
Leave a Reply