Verstappen wins Sprint race at Red Bull Ring to earn P1 start in Austrian GP; Ferrari’s Leclerc & Sainz duke it out for P2 & P3
Formula 1’s gimmicky Sprint Qualifying format returned for this first time this season to set the grid for Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix. On a sunny day at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen converted his “pole” from Friday’s standard qualifying into a victory in the 23-lap Sprint Race on Saturday, earning the top starting spot for tomorrow’s race and 8 championship points in the process. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will line up alongside the Dutch points leader in P2, having out dueled his teammate and last week’s race winner Carlos Sainz, in a rather fierce internecine on track battle. In the event, Sainz came off second best after a series of mutual hip checks and had to settle for P3. Mercedes’ George Russell will start from P4, while his teammate Lewis Hamilton battled back from a nasty sideways shunt during Friday qualifying to take the last point available in this format in P8. Verstappen’s Red Bull stablemate Sergio Perez also had to fight his way to the front after being penalized for exceeding track limits during quali and being relegated to P13 for the start of the Sprint. The veteran Mexican ace picked his way through the field expertly in the limited laps available and ended up all the way up in P5 when the checkers flew. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon secured P6 but teammate Fernando Alonso’s car wouldn’t fire up on the grid and he will go back to P19 on the grid tomorrow, a far distance from his original P8 qualifying effort. The two Haas of Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher seem genuinely quick here and finished the Sprint in P7 and P9 respectively. Schumacher held off Hamilton for several laps before finally giving up the last point paying position to the seven-time champ’s Silver Arrow.
Top 10 finishers of the Sprint race to set the grid for tomorrow’s Austrian GP:
| POS | DRIVER | TIME/RETIRED | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26:30.059 | 8 | |
| 2 | +1.675s | 7 | |
| 3 | +5.644s | 6 | |
| 4 | +13.429s | 5 | |
| 5 | +18.302s | 4 | |
| 6 | +31.032s | 3 | |
| 7 | +34.539s | 2 | |
| 8 | +35.447s | 1 | |
| 9 | +37.163s | 0 | |
| 10 | +37.557s | 0 |
*Bottas took a new power unit after the Sprint and so will start from P20 tomorrow.
Complete Sprint results available via Formula1.com.
Complete “qualifying” results from Friday also via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 9AM Eastern on ESPN2 here in the States. At a track where the home team and their main man Max dominate it’s an open question if the Ferraris have anything at all to challenge the flying Dutchman, as he seeks to gap his nearest championship rivals. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!