F1 News: Verstappen out duels McLarens to win Austrian Sprint

Max Verstappen proved once again why he is the best driver in the world, out-dueling both McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to win the exciting Austrian GP Sprint Race at the Red Bull Ring.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Lap after lap, both McLarens had DRS activation on Verstappen who took the lead from pole at the start, but Verstappen positioned his car perfectly to fend off the challenge.

On lap 5, Norris was able to pass Verstappen with DRS briefly in Turn 3, but Verstappen broke deeper into the downhill corner in Turn 4 and took the lead right back. Norris admitted after the race, he made me look like an amateur.

Piastri and Norris had a great battle for 2nd with Piastri finally winning out over his McLaren teammate, 4.6s behind Verstappen.

“Once the DRS opens it’s very hard to get out of it, took a few laps and a few exciting battles as well, but once we cleared the DRS I could do a bit more my own race,” said a happy Verstappen.

“It looked a bit better, but you could see they [McLaren] have two cars pushing flat out to make it difficult for me. We had to work for it in that race.”

“Yes and no [on being happy with second],” said Piastri. “Obviously, I finished one spot higher than I started, but I didn’t quite have the pace in the second half of that.

“Thought Max and Lando were going to pave the way for me to come through at one point, but not quite!”

“A good race between us, especially with Max at the beginning – was good fun,” said Norris. “Probably some things I definitely should have done a bit better in my battle. The pace of the car was very strong, particularly at the end of the race.”

Mercedes’ George Russell, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton had a fantastic battle for 4th with Russell finally taking the position over Sainz and Hamilton.

In the identical car, underperforming Sergio Perez finished over 17 seconds behind Verstappen, losing almost a second a lap to his teammate

Verstappen has now won all three Sprint races held this year to go with his seven Grand Prix wins. He collected another 8 points to his tally and extended his lead over Lando Norris 227 to 156.

It was Verstappen’s 10th Sprint Race win – far more than anyone else.

Tomorrow in the feature race – the Austrian GP. It should be just as exciting.

2024 Austrian GP Sprint Race Results – 23 Laps