Max Verstappen took sprint race pole for the Austrian Grand Prix on his final lap in Q3, beating championship rival Charles Leclerc by just 0.029 seconds.
The Red Bull driver finished fastest in qualifying for the third consecutive event at the Red Bull Ring, with both Ferraris of Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr lining up ahead of Sergio Perez for Saturday’s sprint race.
Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell crashed out of Q3 after losing the rear of their Mercedes in separate incidents. Russell qualified fifth with Hamilton falling to tenth.
Q1
Friday qualifying started under bright blue skies, with air temperatures hovering just under 20C as drivers took to the circuit for the opening phase.
The two Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz Jnr and Charles Leclerc set the early pace during the early runs, the British Grand Prix winner ahead of his team mate on a 1’06.363. However, the stewards deleted Sainz’s time for exceeding track limits on the exit of the final corner. As per F1’s rules, he also lost his subsequent effortas a result. He was far from the only driver to be caught out in this way.
With 10 minutes remaining, Max Verstappen took to the track for his first flying lap and jumped to the top of the times with a 1’06.097. But he became the next driver to have a time deleted for exceeding track limits at the final corner, and his second attempt along with it.
Eventually, with five minutes to go, Verstappen set a legal lap of a 1’05.852, but that was then beaten immediately by the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz, who went quicker by over four tenths of a second.
In the final five minutes, the drop zone consisted of Lando Norris in the McLaren, Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin, Nicholas Latifi, Lance Stroll and Alexander Albon. Norris jumped to safety in eighth place, moving Zhou Guanyu into danger in 16th.
Stroll improved to 15th, dropping Daniel Ricciardo into danger in 16th place. Zhou improved, but only enough to go 17th. Albon moved into safety with a lap good enough for 13th, putting Yuki Tsunoda at risk of elimination. Tsunoda improved to 12th, dropping team mate Pierre Gasly into 15th. That left Ricciardo starting at a likely elimination, and hs final effort was not good enough: He was knocked out by just 0.024 seconds, Gasly the last driver to survive.
Stroll improved his lap time but failed to better his position, while Vettel could only manage 17th, leaving the two Aston Martins out in the first phase for the second weekend in…
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