Max Verstappen claimed pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix with a huge lap here. However, his track prowess was in stark contrast to the poor performances of Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who ended the day with their cars in the barriers.
It’s a long weekend ahead for Mercedes after suffering a disastrous afternoon at Spielberg. Hamilton dropped out in Q3, taking a big hit, and Russell did the same shortly after. Fortunately, no one was hurt after the unusual mistakes. Hamilton finished 10th and Russell fifth. A setback for the team who were hoping to build on the improvement shown at the British Grand Prix.
Hamilton was inconsolable and unable to explain how he had lost the car. “At the end of the day, I’m incredibly disappointed in myself,” he said. “I feel so sorry for the team, they all worked so hard to put this car together and I never like to damage it or bring it back damaged. I think we were fighting for top 3 and I don’t have an answer. I just lost the rear in turn seven and that was it.”
With the weekend hosting the sprint race format on Saturday, which will determine the grid for Sunday’s GP, they have the chance to come back and make up places as their car looked competitive, but a long night beckons the Mercedes mechanics.
Verstappen, in superb form at his team’s home Grand Prix, produced a superb final run that ensured he would start at the front of the grid for the sprint race. The Red Bull driver beat the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz into second and third. In a highly contested session, the top three were separated by eight hundredths of a second. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was fourth but is under investigation for exceeding track limits during his hot lap in Q2 and could lose places.
Verstappen set the pace in his first Q3 heat run with a time of 1 minute 5.092 seconds. Behind him, however, Hamilton had a shocker. Entering turn seven he lost the rear, tried to correct but was unable to hold it. He drove off and hit a side impact which may have damaged his transmission requiring replacement.
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Some of the fiercely partisan Dutch contingent in the crowd cheered his misfortune and when the session restarted, Russell promptly followed Hamilton to the barriers. He entered turn 10 hot, spun and slid back.
He also regretted what he considered a driver error in pushing too hard. “I would not say [it was] happy escape. There is nothing happy or fortunate about making a mistake like that,” he said. “I could have been fourth. I was a tenth in my lap and I did it. I could have been third, but we have to see how much damage is done, so I feel sorry for the team and the garage.”
Red-flagged again, the final runs were tense one-lap shootouts and Leclerc had the advantage only for Verstappen to pull off a powerful final sector, particularly the final two corners, to set a time of 1min 4.984, two hundredths ahead of the Ferrari.
Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher were seventh and eighth for Haas. Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso are sixth and ninth for Alpine.
Valtteri Bottas was in 13th place, where he will start the sprint. However, after taking a new powertrain, the resulting penalties mean he will start Sunday’s GP from the bottom of the grid. Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda were 11th and 14th for AlphaTauri. Alex Alban was 12th for Williams and Lando Norris 15th for McLaren.
Daniel Ricciardo was 16th for McLaren. Guanyu Zhou was 18th for Alfa Romeo, for the first time in a race session since his huge crash at Silverstone last week. Nicholas Latifi was 19th for Williams. Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll in 17th and 20th for Aston Martin.
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