It’s exciting news for the Orange Army, as Max Verstappen snatches pole position at the Red Bull ring, after a dramatic qualifying session, with a lap time of 1:04:984. It was a close call for his championship rival, Charles LeClerc, as he qualified in P2, just 0.029 seconds behind.
Sainz takes P3 for the Scuderia with a lap time of 1:05:066, and Perez for Red Bull in P4, with 1:05:404. Perez is due to be investigated by the stewards this evening for exceeding track limits in Turn 8.
However, it’s a huge disappointment for the Silver Arrows, as both their sessions saw crashes in Q3, ending with both cars in the barriers. Hamilton appeared to lose control of the car as he went flying into the barriers at Turn 7, causing the red flag to be flown.
“I’m so sorry, guys.” Hamilton spoke into the team radio, before leaving the car and walking away.
Just minutes later, Russell suffered a similar fate, causing a second red flag as he spun off the track at the final corner and into the barriers, just like his teammate.
With no more time to set further laps, Russell qualified in P5, and Hamilton in P10, respectively. The Mercedes, despite a disappointing season, were showing a promising pace throughout Q1 and Q2, with Lewis frequently placing incredibly fast lap times.
Speaking to Sky F1, team principal, Toto Wolff stated ‘Spielberg was always a race where we struggled… we were not expecting an improvement in our performance… but it’s tiny little steps and fantastic work from the engineers.’
The two Alpines set particularly promising lap times with Ocon qualifying in P6 and Alonso down in P9.
It was a great day for both Haas drivers, after Magnussen and Schumacher qualified in P7 and P8, looking incredibly strong throughout the whole of Q3.
The Alpha Tauri’s made it into Q2, with Pierre Gasly missing out on Q3 by just 10 milliseconds, qualifying at P11 and Tsunoda in P14.
Alex Albon, driving for Williams, was able to qualify in P12 and Valtteri Bottas for Alfa Romeo in P13.
The rest of the grid saw bitter disappointment for McLaren driver, Lando Norris, who was running an older engine after having issues in FP1, who showed little confidence in his car. The British driver complained of being ‘too scared to break’, which saw him qualify down in P15.
Failing in Q1, were Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), who has had a disappointing season this year at McLaren and was simply unable to get the pace to get himself through to Q2.
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) and Nicholas Latifi (Williams) qualified in the respective positions after.
It was another disappointing qualifying for Sebastian Vettel. He had a lap time deleted for track limits at the end of the session and lines up tomorrow from P20. The Aston Martin driver claimed, “Argh man, that’s painful,” as he voiced his displeasure at another weak qualifying, just after a similar story at Silverstone.