© Getty Images2024 Austrian Grand Prix - Saturday ReportSprint joy in Spielberg and a 40th pole for the champ
MaxVerstappendeliveredaSuperSaturdayonhomesoilfortheteaminAustria,winningahard-foughtduelwithLandoNorristotakehisthirdstraightSprintwinof2024earlyinthedayandthenbeatingtheMcLarendriverbyacomfortablefourtenthsofasecondinqualifyinginthelateafternoon.ChalkuppolepositionnumbereightforMaxattheRedBullRing.ChecoPérez,meanwhile,tookapointfortheteamwitheighthintheSprintandthesamepositioninqualifyingfortheAustrianGrandPrix.
Max
Checo
After an extra formation lap caused by photographers straying beyond the barriers in Turn 1, Max reacted quickest to the lights going out at the race start and the champion powered into the lead on the run to Turn 1. Behind him, Norris resisted a challenge from team-mate Oscar Piastri to slot into second place, as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz battled his way past Mercedes’ George Russell to take fourth.
Further back, Checo got away well, but behind him the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly dropped back and that allowed Charles Leclerc to surge forward from 10th on the grid. And in Turn 6 on the opening lap, he passed Checo to steal seventh place behind Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
In the opening laps, the McLaren pair, aided by DRS, clung to the back of Max’s RB20 and on lap 5, Norris caught Max by surprise with a late lunge down the inside into Turn 3. Max responded immediately, though, and tucking into the McLaren’s slipstream he braked late into Turn 4 and dived past the McLaren on the inside to retake the lead. Equally surprised, Norris left the door open and Piastri swept through to take P2 around the outside of Turn 6.
Further back, Checo was locked into P8 and as the race developed, the Mexican dropped to two seconds behind Leclerc, who was also struggling to make headway in the dirty air behind Hamilton’s Mercedes.
And with the short, fast laps rapidly counting down, the order began to settle. At the front, Max began to eke out a gap to Piastri and after 23 laps, the Dutchman crossed the line a comfortable 4.6s clear of the Australian to take the 10th Sprint win of his career.
Norris worked hard in the closing stages to reel in and pass his team-mate, but Piastri managed his positioning and battery deployment well to keep the Briton at bay.
Behind the top three, George Russell took fourth for Mercedes ahead of Sainz and Hamilton, with Leclerc in seventh. The final point on offer went to Checo, who finished 17 seconds behind his team-mate.
Keeping The McLarens At Bay© Getty Images
Q1
At the start of qualifying Max and Checo were first out on track and across the line and Max set the pace at 1:06.054, with Checo slotting into P2 a little under 1500ths behind his team-mate. Both were beaten, however, by the Ferrari Leclerc and Sainz, who were then split by Norris.
A swathe of better times dropped Max to sixth and Checo to eighth but when the Bulls returned to the fray, again on used tyres, Max jumped back to the top of the order with a lap of 1:05.336.
Checo moved up to third with a lap of 1:06.646, but once again both were shuffled back as Sainz took top spot with a lap of 1:05.263 set on new Soft tyres. Piastri then pushed Max out to third, while Checo slipped to seventh ahead of the final runs.
The top three – Sainz, Piastri and Max – chose to stay in the garage for the final runs, with Max being one of just two drivers to run only used tyres in the session. However, with the rest of the field heading out on track, Checo also joined the action for security. And as improved times flowed in, Checo began to slide down the order. However, with a new set of Softs on board, the Mexican was able to haul himself up to 12th and through to Q2.
At the top of the timesheet, the top three held onto their positions, with Max going through in P3, but at the bottom of the table there was no place in Q2 for Williams’ Alex Albon, who went out in P16 ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and the Saubers of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu who were split by the second Williams of Logan Sargeant.
Max's RB20 Was Unstoppable Today© Getty Images
Q2
In the first runs of Q2, Max, on new tyres, powered clear of the field with a time of 1:04.577, almost a full second clear of Leclerc whose opener had been completed on used rubber. Russell then closed the gap but only to 0.491 to take P2 ahead of Piastri and Norris, with Checo slotting into sixth. Sainz then jumped to second on fresh tyres, six hundredths of a second quicker than Russell, and that lap pushed Checo out to P7, 0.615 off his team-mate.
With three sets of fresh Softs at his disposal, Max bolted on fresh rubber for his final Q2 run. And the Dutchman improved once more, closing out the middle session with a P1 time of 1:04.469. Sainz, with only two fresh sets of Softs in reserve, chose to sit it out, but none of the Spaniard’s rivals was able to eclipse his run-one time and the Ferrari driver went through in P2 ahead of Russell, Hamilton and Piastri. Checo, meanwhile, ended the session on 1:05.144, good enough for P8 behind Leclerc and Norris.
Eliminated at the end of Q2 were VCARB’s Daniel Ricciardo, with the 11th-placed Australian missing out on the top-10 shootout by just 0.015s, along with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, the second VCARB of Yuki Tsunoda and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Q3
In the first runs of Q3, Max, again with new Softs on board, shaved four hundredths of a second off his Q2 best to take provisional pole, 0.351s ahead of Norris who slotted into second ahead of Russell and Leclerc who was on used tyres.
That was the case, too, for Checo who had run out of fresh Softs altogether and charged with getting the best possible out of two sets of used tyres. The Mexican clawed his way to eighth after the first runs, ahead of Esteban Ocon and Nico Hülkenberg.
The Mexican did the same again in the final runs, holding on to take eighth place at the end of the session, this time ahead of the Haas and the Alpine.
At the top of the timesheet, though, Max was simply untouchable and once again he improved, this time by over four tenths to take his 40th career pole position with a lap of 1:04.314, 0.404 clear of Norris, with Russell in third place. The Mercedes man might have been beaten by Piastri but the Australian’s final flyer was deleted for a track limits violation at Turn 6 and he slid back behind Sainz, Hamilton and Leclerc, who went off at the final corner, and qualified in P7 just ahead of Checo.
Checo Powering Through© Getty Images
| Rank | Driver | Team | Gap | Points | | 1 | Max Verstappen | Oracle Red Bull Racing | - | 8 |
| 2 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | +4.616 | 7 |
| 3 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +5.348 | 6 |
| 4 | George Russell | Mercedes | +8.354 | 5 |
| 5 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +9.989 | 4 |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +11.207 | 3 |
| 7 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +13.424 | 2 |
| 8 | Sergio Pérez | Oracle Red Bull Racing | +17.409 | 1 |
| 9 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | +24.067 | 0 |
| 10 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | +30.175 | 0 |
The Orange Army Giving It Their All© Getty Images
