Red Bull’s Max Verstappen managed to usurp McLaren’s Lando Norris at the end to seize his third consecutive Sprint pole position at Formula 1’s Austrian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman posted a 1:04.686s lap time on his sole attempt in SQ3 to wind up less than a tenth quicker than Norris, with Oscar Piastri third in the second McLaren.
With the Red Bull Ring boasting one of the shortest laps on the entire F1 calendar, an even tighter qualifying session was anticipated across the whole grid than usual.
Verstappen had overcome a sensor hitch in the sole practice hour to top the FP1 times, positioning him in optimal shape as the 12-minute SQ1 segment commenced.
But while the more durable Medium compound was mandated in SQ1 and SQ2, the teams were tentative to head out on track and several minutes passed at the start.
That offered the drivers with little margin to make mistakes, which Lewis Hamilton proved as he aborted his first attempt when he skated through the gravel at Turn 5.
Hamilton managed to post a lap time on the board with 15 seconds remaining, but it wasn’t his greatest effort and granted him a nervous wait as he was 11th overall.
However, the seven-time F1 champion would be fortunate as his time was enough to progress to SQ2, with RB’s Daniel Ricciardo the headline name to endure an exit.
Alongside the Australian, Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas was also eliminated, while Alex Albon’s Williams divided the two Saubers, with Valtteri Bottas heading Guanyu Zhou.
Yuki Tsunoda scraped through at his RB team-mate’s expense in 15th, but the Japanese racer endured a spin at the final corner which threatened to compromise him.
Just like SQ1, SQ2 saw several drivers take their time to set a time with only eight posting an attempt throughout the opening half of the second session.
Again, this heaped pressure on the drivers at threat of elimination in the closing moments with a late flurry of action in the final seconds.
Kevin Magnussen missed out on the top-10 by half a tenth of a second with the Aston Martin duo of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso once again struggling for pace in 12th and 13th respectively.
Tsunoda could only muster 14th and Logan Sargeant, who did well to progress to SQ2 over his Williams team-mate Albon, rounded out the SQ2 order in 15th, just eight-tenths shy of Verstappen’s effort at the top of the leaderboard.
Red Bull’s impressive Dutchman advanced to SQ3 with the fastest time of the first two sessions in his pocket, cementing his candidacy for Sprint pole.
SQ3 afforded eight minutes of soft tyres for the 10 remaining drivers, but once again nobody wanted to emerge from the pit garages for the opening minutes.
The wait was prolonged and it became clear all 10 drivers were going to go out for just one push lap with a queue forming in the pit lane with just over two minutes of the session remaining.
But there was disaster for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who temporarily came to a halt in the pits leaving him with just over a minute to get his out-lap completed before the chequered flag.
The Ferrari driver failed to do so resigning him to finish Sprint qualifying in a disappointing 10th.
However, Verstappen had no such issues, finishing fastest in SQ3 to top all three elements of Friday’s Sprint Qualifying session to ensure he starts at the front of the gird for Saturday morning’s Sprint.
Norris didn’t have enough to do better than complete the front row and Piastri will share row two with Mercedes’ George Russell, who was first out of the pits for the final runs and 0.368s back from Verstappen’s best effort.
Carlos Sainz set the fifth-fastest time for Ferrari with Hamilton’s scruffy Friday afternoon session coming to an end in sixth.
Sergio Perez didn’t maximise his last run as he couldn’t get a clean line of attack, finishing seventh and 1.322s back from pole.
Alpine’s impressive turn of form continued with both its drivers making it into SQ3, backing up the pace shown by the Anglo-French outfit in Barcelona.
Esteban Ocon led the Alpine charge in eighth with Pierre Gasly setting the ninth fastest time.
Puke… MV on pole again. At least I won’t have to wake up early to watch Norris “almost” winning the sprint.
As for the SQ qualifying rules, they are a “shot in the knee”. Instead of thrilling fights, you get three flying laps in 44 minutes. That’s almost as exciting as watching a game of chess…