Formula 1 News: Verstappen dominates Austrian GP qualifying

World Driving Champion Max Verstappen continued to dominate the Austrian GP weekend, easily winning pole for Sunday’s big race at the Red Bull Ring.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Verstappen’s lap of 1m04.314s was 0.404s faster than the McLaren Lando Norris. On such a short lap that is a massive margin, Verstappen taking the others to school all day after winning the Sprint race earlier today.

Having set an impressive early benchmark in the initial laps of Q3, Verstappen bettered his time on his second effort to a record a lap.

“On fire,” said Verstappen over the radio on his cooldown lap. His time in the 2nd and 3rd sectors were demoralizing to his opponents.

“The qualifying went really well” said Verstappen.

“We tried to adjust the car a little bit after the things that we learned this morning and I think it worked well.

“Of course the track is a bit warmer than yesterday so it made it a bit tricker to drive, but the car felt a lot better for me today. I could really attack the corners a bit more and every run was on point. It was very enjoyable out there.”

On used tires he was only 3rd quick, but once he bolted on new tires he was a second faster. His teammate, Sergio Perez in the identical Red Bull RB20, was 9/10ths of a second slower than Verstappen.

It was Verstappen’s 40th career F1 pole position at the young age of just 26. It was his first pole since Imola.

“I think as much as we could do it today [fight for pole], Max was in a league of his own,” said Norris.

“Clearly much quicker than what we had so I’m happy. Tricky conditions, found it a bit more difficult than it was yesterday, a lot closer, so more difficult to get the laps in and to perfect the laps but it was good enough, and I’ll take it.”

The Mercedes of George Russell was third quick, 0.526s behind Verstappen.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was 4th quick in his #55 Ferrari, 0.537s behind Verstappen.

Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top-5 in the #44 Mercedes, 0.589s behind the Dutchman.

Oscar Piastri has had a lap time deleted for track limits at Turn 6 and he drops to P7 in the final order.

Charles Leclerc ran out of talent trying to beat his teammate and went off the track and broke the underside of his car that will require the floor to be replaced, meaning he may have to start from pit lane.

That was Verstappen’s fifth consecutive Grand Prix pole at the Red Bull Ring – the first time he’s achieved that at any circuit. Red Bull are definitely enjoying their home race here in Austria and Verstappen really goes well here.

Russell’s P3 was also the Mercedes man’s best ever qualifying result at this track. And, this will be Sergio Perez’s first top-10 start in the last five Grands Prix.

Fernando Alonso had a challenging Saturday. The Spaniard was eliminated in Q2, having been unable to improve from 15th in a session where he reported nearly crashing his Aston Martin during his flying lap.

While Logan Sargeant had managed to beat Williams teammate Alex Albon in Friday’s Sprint Qualifying, both drivers had a tough Saturday, with Albon ending the day in P16 while Sargeant will start from the back row in P19.

It was also a doubly difficult outing for Aston Martin as Lance Stroll exited Q1 in 17th, along with the Kick Sauber duo of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu in 18th and 20th respectively.

2024 Austrian GP Qualifying Results