The second of three Grands Prix in three consecutive weeks, Austria presents this weekend an event featuring the Sprint format, with this Saturday’s Sprint race and qualifying for tomorrow’s Grand Prix. In a hot and sunny atmosphere at the Red Bull Ring circuit in Spielberg in the Styrian region, the 23-lap Sprint race was the first of two on-track activities in F1. It was won by Max Verstappen (Red Bull), the three-time world champion then completing a perfect day with pole position for the Grand Prix.
Starting first in front of Lando Norris, Verstappen came under pressure from the McLaren driver during the first 4 laps, the Briton even managing to take the lead but for only one corner. Having opened the door too much, Norris then let Verstappen pass but also his teammate Oscar Piastri to steal 2nd place from him. The positions would no longer vary for the leading trio, Verstappen gradually widening the gap on Piastri and Norris.
For 4th place, it was a great fight between George Russell (Mercedes) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), with the final advantage going to the former while Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Charles Leclerc (Ferrrai) and Sergio Pérez (Fred Bull) completed the Top 8 and therefore the list of drivers scoring points in this Sprint. For Aston Martin, however, it was another difficult race, with Quebecer Lance Stroll, 10th, doing much better than Fernando Alonso (15th). For the full ranking, click here.
After this Sprint interlude, the Grand Prix qualifying session, still in intense heat, completed the day. Proof of the current competitiveness in F1, 4 minutes from the end of Q1, the 20 registered drivers, from Carlos Sainz to Logan Sargeant (Williams), then 1st and 20th in the session, were grouped in the same second! In the end, 798 thousandths of a second, the smallest gap ever recorded in the history of F1 between the first and the last classified, separated the drivers. Sainz set the best time in the segment and the second Spaniard, Alonso, narrowly escaped elimination by finishing 15th. Stroll was not so lucky, being eliminated (17th), just like Alex Albon (Williams, 16th), Sargeant (19th) and the Saubers of Valtteri Bottas (18th) and Gunayu Zhou (last, as too often).
In Q2, Verstappen posted an exceptional lap to set the best time in 1’04″577, almost half a second faster than Sainz, 2nd. In the fast sections of the circuit, Verstappen’s domination was such that the Red Bull driver was moving more than 10 km/h faster than the second Proof of absolute confidence from the driver and a perfectly tuned car Daniel Ricciardo (RB), Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Pierre Gasly (who. complained about an Alpine lacking handling), Yuki Tsunoda (RB) and Alonso were the 5 drivers eliminated from this segment.
Bringing together the 10 fastest drivers in Q2, Q3 held few surprises, with Verstappen signing his 40th pole position in F1, his first since the Imola Grand Prix last month. He also beat his own record set in Q2, 1’04”314. Norris (0.404 seconds behind) will start alongside him on the front row, ahead of Russell, Sainz, Hamilton, Leclerc, Piastri (3rd on the track but whose last time was canceled for a very slight exceeding of the track limits at the turn 6), Pérez, Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) and Esteban Ocon (Alpine). For the full ranking, click here.
Note that the Sprint race and qualifying took place without the slightest incident or road trip this Saturday, apart from slight excursions by Gasly into the gravel in Q2 and by Leclerc into the grass in Q3. The start of the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix will be given tomorrow from 3 p.m. local (9 a.m. Quebec time).
