Austria Quali/Sprint: Max on Top

Traditionally Max has been on top in Austria and this year seems no different. However both the Ferrari drivers seem to be very close to him.

Sublime Max in Austria

Austria has been a good hunting ground from Max Verstappen. It is also the home race for Red Bull Racing and an army of Max fans have thronged the track wearing orange. Max did not disappoint them either. He was on top on all the practice sessions and made the most in the Quali session to be on Pole. Even in the Sprint he had a great start and never looked back to get the maximum point and start from P1 in the race.

His team-mate Checo had a roller coaster Quali and Sprint session. His quali time was deleted for breaching the track limits and was relegated to P13. But Checo made the most of his Sprint, jumping many places and will be starting the race P5, close to where he would like to be.

Ferrari very close to Red Bull

Both the Ferrari drivers seems to be in good touch. Charles is in the form of his life this season and Carlos very confident from his win in Silverstone. In Quali the top three drivers were separated by just 0.082 seconds. However when the Sprint started Charles and Carlos got into fighting each other for P2 and thus lost valuable time. Charles came out on top but Max had moved ahead too much. They had to settle for P2 and P3 which is not a bad place to start the race tomorrow.

Mercedes : Good pace, bad show

Mercedes seem to be gradually making progress and get the performance to be close to Red Bull and Ferrari, although not quite yet. In fact at one point Hamilton was leading the Quali session. However he pushed too much in Q3 and ended up crashing sideways against the barrier. He started Sprint in P9, moved back a few positions and then gained them back to finish P8.

The other Mercedes driver, George Russell, also crashed in the Quali session but not before setting a decent lap time. He was P4 in Quali and maintained the position through the Sprint.

HAAS and Alpine doing well

In the best of the rest it is HAAS and Alpine being in the top 10. HAAS drivers Kevin and Mick started P7 and P8 in the Sprint Race. They finished P7 and P9 respectively, with Hamilton jumping Schumacher after an entertaining tussle.

Alpine had wild fortunes in Quali and Sprint. Both the Alpine drivers managed to get in top 10 in Quali. However some electrical issues meant that he could join the Sprint Race and will be starting from the back of the grid.

Austria Starting Grid : Max on Top