Verstappen drives all doubts into the ground
First the victory in the Sprint, only hours later follows the one in qualifying: Max Verstappen explains why he is the number 1 in Formula 1. Despite his performance raising doubts for weeks, the Red Bull driver was relieved after his win at the Sprint and secured the pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix later that day. His dominance reminded many of supposed past times.
"That was a beautiful statement," said Verstappen amidst the cheers of thousands of Dutch fans, "I really enjoyed it. It had been a while since the last pole." For the third race in a row, the first starting position had not been at Red Bull before - this time, not even Lando Norris could keep up: Norris was four tenths of a second behind the second-placed McLaren driver. Mercedes and Ferrari followed in alternating order: George Russell and Lewis Hamilton took the third and fifth spots, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc started from fourth and sixth respectively.
Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren had initially been in third place, but his best time was disqualified due to exceeding the track limits. In the end, he only managed seventh place. Nico Hülkenberg in Haas made it to Q3 and secured the ninth starting position.
In the Sprint race at noon, it initially seemed that Verstappen could not hold off the McLaren duo for long. Starting from first place, he was chased by Norris and Piastri for several laps. After five laps, Norris passed Verstappen quite aggressively - but left too much room on the inside, allowing Verstappen to counterattack immediately.
"I left the door open and defended like an amateur," Norris later admitted. To make matters worse, Piastri also took advantage of the situation and overtook Norris, putting him in the way of his faster teammate. It was only then that Verstappen was able to pull away and win the Sprint.
In qualifying, Verstappen did not look like a dominant force in the very close Q1, with Sainz and Piastri ahead of him. However, he improved significantly in the second segment and confirmed this impression in Q3.
The race could still be a close affair based on the impressions from the Sprint. "The Grand Prix will be long and hot, that's a whole different story," Verstappen said. However, the heat at this weekend's event in Spielberg is an important factor: the air temperature reached 31 degrees Celsius on Saturday, and the asphalt heated up to 45 degrees. Tires suffer significantly under such conditions, and at least the impressions from the season so far suggest that McLaren handles the tires best.
"Despite McLaren giving Red Bull Racing a run for their money in the Sprint race, Max Verstappen managed to defend his position and secure a win, just as he had done in qualifying earlier," stated a sports analyst. "This was indeed a special achievement for Verstappen, as he outperformed both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from McLaren, who had consistently shown impressive form in recent races."
