Verstappen fights off Norris to claim pole position for Sprint in Austria

Max Verstappen has won sprint qualifying at the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix. The Dutchman's lap time was a 1:04.686. Alongside the defending world champion, Lando Norris will line up in tomorrow's sprint race on the front row of the grid, and his teammate, Oscar Piastri rounded off the Top 3 at the Red Bull Ring.

Max Verstappen just managed to defeat Lando Norris, as only 0.093 separated the two drivers. Oscar Piastri did well to finish third ahead of George Russell, who was the better of the two Mercedes drivers this afternoon and finished fourth. Carlos Sainz finished in P5 ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who made a mistake in Turn 3.

Sergio Perez was once again far away from his teammate. The Mexican finished only in P7 and his gap to the Dutchman in SQ3 was 1.3 seconds. Esteban Ocon finished in P8 ahead of Pierre Gasly, while Charles Leclerc could not complete a lap because he briefly had to stop at the end of the pit lane, and will start from P10.

There were no surprises in SQ2, with the top four teams’ cars all making it through to SQ3 with relative ease. Verstappen finished in P1 ahead of Russell and Piastri. It was a joyful session for Alpine, as Ocon and Gasly both made it through to the final session of the day, while Fernando Alonso once again failed set a quicker lap time than Lance Stroll. Kevin Magnussen just missed out and finished in P11.

After only one practice session on Friday, Verstappen topped SQ1 in Austria. Hamilton had a nervy session, as his first lap got taken away, and his second lap was not much better either, but it was enough to go through in P13.

A couple of drivers were caught out by the new gravel traps. The biggest incident was Tsunoda’s, who lost control of his car in the penultimate corner, and slid all the way through to nearly into the barrier of the final turn. Eventually, with Pierre Gasly eliminating Daniel Ricciardo in the final moment, Hulkenberg and the two Stake F1 cars were knocked out of SQ1. Furthermore, Logan Sargeant managed to outqualify Alex Albon, as the American made it through to SQ2.