Official F1 Journal Formula 1 Saturday Round Up - Austria

28/6/2024

Saturday started off well for Verstappen who takes his 10th Sprint Race title and the day got even better for Verstappen claiming his 50th career pole for tomorrow's feature race.

In the closest Q1's in F1 history, with just 0.798s covering the 20 drivers, but throughout the session, it was Verstappen who was the clear stand-out performer for qualifying.

Verstappen is joined by Norris on the front row for tomorrow's race, with Russell managing to take P3 after Piastri's last lap time was deleted for track limits, moving him down to P7.

Sainz and Hamilton start on the third row, with Leclerc and Piastri starting behind them.

McLaren wasn't happy about Piastri's deleted lap time, with Andrea Stella headed to the FIA to better understand Piastri's deleted lap time for track limits.

Sprint Race

As the heat climbs in Austria, the Sprint Race starts, with every team choosing to start on medium tyres. Alex Albon begins from the Pit Lane after changing his car during Parc Ferme.
With just 24 laps, the Sprint Race provides a taster for Sunday's feature race.

With everyone lined up on the grid ready to start the race, the race is aborted and the drivers do an extra formation lap due to photographers standing behind barriers in T1 posing a safety risk. Alex Albon is allowed to do an extra formation lap after his car was overheating at the start of the pit lane, he then rejoined back in the Pit Lane. The extra formation lap takes a lap out of the Sprint Race, making it just 23 laps.

Max Verstappen holds the lead into the uphill run into the first corner, with Norris and Piastri tasseling for P2 and P3, with Norris maintaining position. Sainz overtook both Mercedes into P4, and Magnussen overtook Ocon to get into the top ten.

Albon had already reached the back of the pack on the first lap, with Norris managing to keep within DRS of Verstappen into lap three.

Leclerc started in P10, but by lap three, he had already gained three places, with both Alpines falling behind out of the top ten.

Norris and Piastri challenge Verstappen from lap three and put him under pressure. Norris lunges around Verstappen on lap four, but Verstappen quickly regains the lead on lap five. Norris loses two positions, and his teammates also overtake him for P2.

Sainz, Russell, and Hamilton join the front runners, and the front six battle it out. George regains his fourth position from Sainz, with Hamilton on Sainz's back.

Verstappen pulls away from Piastri with the top three now 2.2 seconds ahead of Russell in fourth place. Hamilton bided his time behind Sainz on a DRS train, with Leclerc closing the gap and joining the train.

Piastri edges out of the DRS range from Verstappen in the lead, with Verstappen clear by 1.2s and Norris in P3 1.7s further back.

The Alpines battle it out for P12 and P13, with Magnussen holding up the rest of the pack.

For laps 13, 14 and 15, Norris charges and is the quickest driver on track and gets within DRS range of Piastri, waiting for this chance to overtake, but Norris already has two track limit violations. Verstappen still 3.2s in front and Russell 2.9s further behind Russell.

Further back, Riccardo overtakes Sargeant and moves into P16. Albon gets ahead of Bottas and Zhou and moves into P18.

Hulkenberg almost forces Alonso off the track with a late break, allowing Riccardo to go past and into 15th place. The stewards looked into the incident after the race and after the race Hulkenberg received a 10-second time penalty and two penalty points.

Norris is on the back of Piastri into the final lap, and Piastri defends superbly. But Verstappen crosses the finish line 4.6s ahead of Piastri in second and Norris in third. He was followed by Russell, Sainz, Hamilton, Leclerc and Perez, finishing the points positions.

Sprint Race Results

1) Max Verstappen
2) Oscar Piastri +4.616
3) Lando Norris +5.348
4) George Russell +8.354
5) Carlos Sainz +9.989
6) Lewis Hamilton +11.207
7) Charles Leclerc +13.424
8) Sergio Perez +17.409
9) Kevin Magnussen +24.067
10) Lance Stroll +30.175
11) Esteban Ocon +30.839
12) Pierre Gasly +31.308
13) Yuki Tsunoda +35.425
14) Nico Hulkenberg +38.423
15) Daniel Riccardo +39.397
16) Fernando Alonso +43.155
17) Logan Sargeant +44.076
18) Alex Albon +44.673
19) Valtteri Bottas +46.511
20) Zhou Guanyu +53.143

Qualifying

In a thrilling qualifying session Max Verstappen claims his 40th career pole taking the lead from Norris by 0.404s. In what was an incredibly close Q1, with Sargeant in P19, just 0.593s off the fastest time in the session, with such small margins covering all the drivers.

Q1

Out In Q1
16) Alex Albon
17) Lance Stroll
18) Valtteri Bottas
19) Logan Sargeat
20) Zhou Guanyu

Verstappen gets out onto the track first, with the RBs just finishing set-up changes on both Riccardo and Tsunoda's cars between sessions.

During the early runs in Q1, the top five were Leclerc, Norris, Piastri, Tsunoda, Sainz and Hamilton, with the top six all covered by only 0.045s.

Perez was in trouble in the closing stages of the session down in P14 but improved on his final lap and managed to scrape through in P12.

Q1 was incredibly close, with Sargeant in P19, just 0.593s off the fastest time in the session, with such small margins covering all the drivers. Sainz tops the leaderboard for Q1 with a 1:05.263, with Piastri behind him with a gap of just 0.048s.

Q2

Out In Q2
11) Daniel Riccardo +0.015s away from Q3
12) Kevin Magnussen +0.073s
13) Pierre Gasly +0.085s
14) Yuki Tsunoda +0.138s
15) Fernando Alonso +0.365s

Both Alpines were out on the race first, followed by both Ferraris, all eager to get a time on the board and get some clear air for their flying laps.

Both Ferraris started the session on used soft tyres to set their first flying lap times, but Sainz complained about porpoising, taking P1 and P4 early in the session between the two Alpines.

Next out on track are Verstappen and Norris, who were looking to match their Sprint Qualifying times. With ten minutes left in the session, a line formed to get out of the pits.

With eight minutes to go, Verstappen set a lap time of 1:04.577, almost 1 second away from the rest of the pack. No other drivers manage to get within 0.547 of Verstappen's fastest lap time of 1:04.469.

Q3

Starting Top 10
1) Max Verstappen 1:04.314
2) Lando Norris +0.404
3) George Russell +0.526
4) Carlos Sainz +0.537
5) Lewis Hamilton +0.589
6) Charles Leclerc +0.730
7) Oscar Piastri +0.732
8) Sergio Perez +0.888
9) Nico Hulkenberg +1.071
10) Esteban Ocon +1.569

Verstappen and Norris again record times that went straight to the top of the leaderboard, with 0.361s between them.

Verstappen continues to go quicker as the session progresses but gets noted for 'driving unnecessarily slowly' in the pit exit.

Piastri makes it up to P3 but gets his lap time deleted for track limits and moves down into P7.

Verstappen finishes with the fastest lap, 0.404s ahead of the rest of the field, with Norris joining him on the front row tomorrow with Russell and Sainz on the second row.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who qualified in pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix said after qualifying "The qualifying went really well.

"We tried to adjust the car a little bit after the things we earned this morning and I think it went really well, The track was a bit warmer than it was yesterday which made it a bit tricker to drive but the car felt a lot better for me today.

"I could attack the corners a bit more and every run was on point and was very enjoyable out there.

"It’s been a while that we've actually been on pole so it’s a great feeling. The team has been working really hard to make the car a bit more competitive and I think this is a great statement and it will be a great fight.

"It is always nice to race (Norris) and it ill be a tight battle but I’m not thinking too much about that. I am just happy how the car was performing today and hopefully it will translate tomorrow in race pace."

Anny Wooldridge
Writer for the F1 Journal

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