Max Verstappen has beaten Charles Leclerc by almost half a tenth to take pole position for Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver continued his domination of qualifying and put himself ahead of Leclerc as he showed that Red Bull continued to be the team to beat.
Verstappen topped all three parts of qualifying managing to show his dominance and strength at the Red Bull Ring as he goes a looking for a fifth Grand Prix win at this circuit. That allowed the Dutchman to take his fourth consecutive pole at this circuit. Ferrari, meanwhile, were his closest challengers with the smallest margin of the season so far, Leclerc giving it everything he had evenly running dangerously close to track limits on his final attempt in Q3.
But Verstappen was still faster on his final attempt to retain pole position, while Leclerc’s final attempt put him less than half a tenth off. Leclerc going nearly a tenth and a half faster than his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz. Lando Norris put McLaren’s upgrades to good use going fourth, a tenth and a half ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Ferrari midway through the season look to be coming back, as are Mercedes both had difficult start to 2023. But the Red Bull is still looking difficult to beat. A brilliant lap for Norris put him fourth, beating one Mercedes and helped by both Sergio Perez and George Russell being knocked out in Q2.
The session was defined by track limits, even Verstappen and Hamilton lost a lap time for exceeding track limits in Q2 while. He made it through his championship rival and teammate Perez lost two laps resulting in him being knocked out in Q2, unlike Verstappen who kept his car within the white lines.
Verstappen, who was imperious as he secured his fourth pole in a row, said: “It was very difficult because of all the track limits. We don’t do this on purpose but with these speeds and high-speed corners, it is very difficult to judge the white line. A lot of people were being caught out, including me. It takes out the joy a little bit but still a very good lap.”
Sainz added: “We need to find a way to correct it and we will sit down (with the FIA) and try to do that.”
Despite his lap only being good enough for a second, Leclerc’s final attempt looked to dance on the limit of both the white lines and control. But finally, Ferrari appeared to for the first time in a while get things right in qualifying whether they can do that for the rest of the weekend is yet to be seen.
Leclerc, who has had a difficult run in recent races, said: “It feels good to finally have a clean qualifying again and to be back on the front row. The feeling has been a bit better in the last few races. It was all about building up to the last lap and I managed to put everything in. Very close to the Red Bulls. I don’t think we expected to be that close.”
But post-qualifying while buoyed by second, admitted that Ferrari’s main goal at the moment is to improve their race pace, which has left them trailing Mercedes and Aston Martin, more often than not this season.
Perez looked to struggled to remain within the confines of the circuit at the final two corners, with the Mexican having three lap times deleted in Q2 despite appearing to have the pace to compete for a place on the front row. While Norris looked to use McLaren’s upgrades to good use to go fourth, signs of recovery.
Norris had been the only McLaren to get the upgrade and believes he could have been even higher had he not made a mistake on his final lap.
Norris said, “I messed up my lap a bit. Should have had Carlos, but I am still quite happy. P4 is a good result. The car has been working very well so I have say a big thank you to the team for getting all the new bits here, We wouldn’t be P4 without that. So super-happy.”
Lance Stroll put his Aston Martin sixth after going a hundredth and a half faster than his teammate Fernando Alonso, the team may be starting to slip back midway through the season from being the closest challengers to Red Bull. It was only the second time this season that the Canadian has managed to out-qualify the two time champion.
Nico Hulkenberg was a hundredth and a half behind Alonso with the Haas going ahead of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon who all improved on their final laps. However, Albon would have his fastest lap in Q3 deleted for track limits leaving him tenth.
Russell was fastest of those knocked out in Q2 throughout the session the track kept improving as did the drivers pushing track limits to the limits. He was three hundredths faster than Esteban Ocon, but maybe Russell was too early with his final flying lap being the first to set a final attempt.
Oscar Piastri was thirteenth going three-quarters of a tenth ahead of the Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas. Perez was the biggest casualty from his track limits violations, the Red Bull’s only legal lap being a cool-down lap, over a minute behind Verstappen’s Q2 topping time.
The Mexican certainty had the pace to fight for pole position all three laps which were deleted were roughly about the same times as Verstappen. Instead it left him slowest of the cars knocked out in Q2. The fourth race in a row where he has missed out on Q3, while his teammate Verstappen has taken pole.
Bottas had earlier brought the only red flag out in Q1, the Finn walloped the sausage kerb through Lauda sending the Alfa Romeo across the gravel. However despite spinning backwards into the wall kept going and recovered his car after finding neutral.
Yuki Tsunoda was fastest of those knocked out in Q1, he spilt the Alfa Romeo’s going three hundredths faster than Guanyu Zhou. Zhou was nearly a half a tenth faster than Logan Sargeant, both drivers looked good enough to attempt to get out of Q1 but both breeched track limits through the final corner thus had the times deleted.
Kevin Magnussen was nineteen however complained at AMG AG (Turn Three) about downshift problems on the Haas, Nyck De Vries three thousandths behind and rounded out the field.
Qualifying set the grid for Sunday’s grand prix, and Saturday will be devoted to the shorter ‘sprint’ event, with a qualifying session, the ‘sprint shoot-out’ at 11:00 BST and the sprint itself at 15:30.
