Max Verstappen imperious at Austrian GP as he secures fourth pole in a row
Max Verstappen opened his Red Bull team’s home race account with clinical execution to take pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix. At Formula One’s second sprint race meeting of the year the serious business remains ahead but on this form, on a track that plays to the strengths of his car and in front of swathes of Dutch fans, every expectation is that Verstappen has far more to come at the Red Bull Ring, even as Charles Leclerc finally brought a fight to Red Bull.
The Dutchman was imperious in beating Ferrari’s Leclerc and Carlos Sainz into second and third place in qualifying. Yet Ferrari will take heart from pushing the Dutchman hard, the Scuderia’s upgrades brought to Austria delivering a long hoped-for fillip for the team.
Verstappen, wanting to impose himself on the pack, went out early in the final runs and duly set the pace with his first quick run in a time of 1min 4.503sec. Quickest in every sector and staying within the track limits that had been catching out drivers throughout the session, he was two-tenths up on Leclerc, who had put in a far from shabby lap.
Verstappen’s second run was even better, the final sector immense with 1min 4.391sec, but he needed it to be as Leclerc threw it all at him. His last quick run left nothing behind, it was as good as the Ferrari has looked all year and he finished only four-hundredths back from the world champion.
“It feels good to be back on the front row,” said Leclerc. “Overall I don’t think we expected to be so close to the Red
Bulls, so it’s a good step forward.”
For Leclerc there was a clear sense that finally the team might be moving forwards as he thanked them for their efforts but he will be mindful he can take nothing for granted. His last grand prix win came here last year and while the Ferrari is quick over the single lap it is very hard on the tyres; the team will have to execute to perfection to ensure he has even a chance of a shot at Verstappen. Nonetheless there is cautious optimism at the Scuderia that they are finally making steps in closing the gap to Red Bull and in delivering a more competitive car.
Lando Norris did superbly on a track he likes to claim fourth for McLaren and Lewis Hamilton was fifth for Mercedes. However, what was really noticeable and ominous for Sunday’s race was how within himself Verstappen appeared, and with the further confidence of knowing his car has more to come in race pace. He has five wins this year in what is proving to be an utterly dominant Red Bull car and leads the world championship by 69 points from his teammate Sergio Pérez.
It is Verstappen’s fourth pole in a row and his fourth in Austria, building on the back of four straight wins. His form and the dominance of his car suggests converting it to another win is all too likely. It would be his seventh of the season and maintain his team’s unbroken win streak in 2023.
F1 embraces its new sprint race format for the second time this season. With race qualifying concluded, a second qualifying on Saturday will decide the grid for the sprint, itself a standalone race. The sprint will be over 100km, with points from eight to one for the top eight.
Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso were in sixth and seventh for Aston Martin, Nico Hülkenberg in eighth for Haas, Pierre Gasly in ninth for Alpine and Alex Albon in 10th for Williams.
Pérez’s qualifying woes continued, as he failed to reach Q3 for the fourth race in a row after his last two quick laps in Q2 were deleted for exceeding track limits, dropping him to 15th. George Russell also had a lap deleted and went out in 11th for Mercedes, Esteban Ocon was in 12th for Alpine, Oscar Piastri in 13th for McLaren and Valtteri Bottas in 14th for Alfa Romeo.
AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries were in 16th and 20th, Zhou Guanyu in 17th for Alfa Romeo, Logan Sargeant 18th for Williams and Kevin Magnussen 19th for Haas.