F1: Lando Norris on pole for Austrian GP with Max Verstappen down in seventh – as it happened
Well deserved! The McLaren driver has been dominant all weekend and finishes in style – half a second faster than Leclerc with a time of 1:03.971.It is his first pole in Austria!Giles Richards was at the Red Bull Ring and here is his verdict:For Norris this was just the result he required after his title hopes took a battering when he made the misjudged move against Piastri in Montreal, dropping him to 22 points behind the Australian.At the Red Bull Ring this weekend Norris had insisted his error in Canada had ultimately resulted in a positive outcome, that he and the team emerged stronger now the seemingly unavoidable clash had finally happened.Certainly Norris looked enormously comfortable in qualifying, which has been his achilles heel this season.
In Austria, it all appeared to come together and the British driver looked in complete control from the off.Read his full report here.And join us tomorrow for live updates for race day from 2pm BST.Bye for now!Verstappen, who finished in a lowly seventh, has his say to Sky Sports:It would have been close potentially until the yellow flag but that’s still miles off pole.So that, at the end, is not really that painful.
FP3 wasn’t too bad but somehow in qualifying it just completely disappeared,There was not a single corner where I felt happy with the car and it was, of course, then a big problem in qualifying,I don’t really look at the standings, I just want to do the best I can in the race weekend,Hopefully tomorrow we can at least be competitive with Ferrari or Mercedes,I don’t know even, because with the balance we had in qualy that’s for sure not going to look great for tomorrow, but we will analyse everything.
1,Lando Norris (McLaren) 1min 03,971sec2,Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0,5213.
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.5834.Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.6115.George Russell (Mercedes) +0.
7926,Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +0,9557,Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0,9588.
Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) +1,1619,Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +1,30510,Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.
67811.Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)12.Alex Albon (Williams)13.Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)14.Franco Colapinto (Alpine)15.
Oliver Bearman (Haas)16.Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)17.Esteban Ocon (Haas)18.Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)19.Carlos Sainz (Williams)20.
Nico Hülkenberg (Sauber)And here is Piastri with some strong words ahead of tomorrow’s race:It was the fact I didn’t get to start [the final lap], that was the problem I had.Gasly spun at the last corner so I didn’t even open my second lap.Lando has been very quick all weekend and it would have been a tough challenge, but I think we easily had enough pace in the car this weekend to be on the front row.So always a shame when you don’t even get the chance but we can still have a good race from there.It’s sometimes just not your day.
Our pace this weekend has looked very strong.The Ferrari pace looked good as well, which was a bit of a surprise, but we still have some opportunities tomorrow.I’m not planning on finishing third, that’s for sure.Leclerc’s thoughts after finishing second:I’m very pleased.It’s been a long time since we started on the front row.
It’s been a difficult season overall but the team have kept pushing.We’ve brought some new parts this weekend, which for sure made a difference because the gaps are super close.I’m very happy with the lap.It’s a good start to the weekend.We know that we have a better car normally in the race than qualifying, so I hope we can put a bit more pressure on McLaren tomorrow.
I can’t imagine Lando’s lap with our car, but we are going to work towards that.It’s not to minimise Lando’s job.He must have done an incredible job.Congrats to him.He deserves it.
Tomorrow we’ll try to bring him a tough time,Piastri was another driver that also suffered from the yellow flag,It would have been hard for him to match Norris but he might have managed second,Norris speaks after taking pole:It was a good lap, that’s for sure,My Q3 run one was good but I knew there were a few places where, if I just got it right, I could still get quite a bit more time and I did exactly that.
I did what I planned to do and when I plan to do something and it goes right, it normally goes very, very well,So very happy,A good day and it has been a good weekend for me so far, so hopefully we can keep it up,It’s a long season and I still savour this moment, especially as some of my tougher moments have been in qualy,So to put in the lap like today, to put in the performance like I had, was pleasing for myself.
I’m excited.I want to prove to myself over and over again and hopefully this is the beginning of it.Confirmation from replays that the yellow flag that hindered Verstappen went up after Gasly spun through the last corner.Well deserved! The McLaren driver has been dominant all weekend and finishes in style – half a second faster than Leclerc with a time of 1:03.971.
It is his first pole in Austria!A yellow flag comes up which forces Verstappen to back out of his final attempt,He remains in seventh …Every driver now has new soft tyres now as we enter the final minutes of Q3,Verstappen is speeding up, trying to challenge Norris …Sainz, who was eliminated in Q1, speaking to Sky Sports: “We put new brakes for qualifying like we always do but as soon as I got out of the pits, the car was pulling to one side,On top of that, I had quite a lot of damage to the floor, which I expected, given how hard the car was to drive,Obviously not happy because too many issues, too many problems and at the end a Q1 exit.
On his chances for Sunday: “We’ll see tomorrow,Today was not our day; way too many problems again in qualifying and we need to find out why we are experiencing so many problems,I’ve been the fastest of the midfield on race pace, which gives encouragement for tomorrow, but we’re definitely starting too far back,”Latest order: Norris, Leclerc, Piastri, Hamilton, Russell, Verstappen, Antonelli, Bortoleto, Gasly and Lawson,Norris’s lap is confirmed with a time of 1:04.
268.Hamilton is in fourth, two tenths ahead of his former teammate Russell.Verstappen can only get as high as sixth …Norris faster than Piastri again.The Briton is confident as he is almost three tenths up on his teammate.And what’s this? Leclerc splits the McLaren duo and is in second!Russell almost goes into the side of Leclerc as soon as Q3 begins.
Everyone is speeding out for this final qualifier with the stakes high.A great performance from Bortoleto, with the 20-year-old Brazilian through to Q3 for the first time ever.“Let’s go! I hope the first of many,” he tells his team over the radio.There was an incident in Q2 where Norris was going quite slow with Leclerc behind him but the Ferrari man did have room to go around,It was a McLaren one-two for Norris and Piastri in Q2 (shocker!) with Ferrari’s Leclerc in third.Gasly surged up to sixth, which knocked Alonso down to 11th.
Antonelli gets into P10 by the skin of his teeth.11 Alonso12 Albon13 Hadjar14 Colapinto15 BearmanBortoleto races a great lap as he slots into third, 0.4s off Norris.No one seems wants to go out but Verstappen pulls the trigger and all of a sudden all 15 cars head on to the circuit.The session should resume in two minutes.
Albon, Bearman, Alonso, Bortoleto and Colapinto are in the danger zone in Q2.The grass has set fire.The flag goes up and the drivers are back in the garages.This happened earlier this season in Japan.Is anyone going to beat the McLaren duo? Unlikely! Norris beats Piastri by a tenth and they are half a second clear of Verstappen in third.
But here come the Ferraris again …Verstappen says his car is “completely undriveable”.It is even worse before.I don’t even know what to say.Lawson goes top before the McLaren’s take the track.Can he hold on to that spot?The Ferraris on their used soft tyres race slower than they did at the end of Q1 with Leclerc racing to a time of 1:05.
446, two tenths quicker than Hamilton.Here we go! Who will make the top 10? The Ferraris are first out on the track.Sainz on the radio tells his team there is something wrong with his car.There’s damage in the car, for sure.The car is undriveable
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