Lewis and Max on front row
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen will share the front row of the second Austrian GP in a wild wet qualifying session
Lewis Hamilton showed that he truly is a king of the wets. He was consistent in the entire qualifying session and never slipped at any moment whatsoever. Max Verstappen just couldn’t match up to the six time world champion as his car slipped at the final turn of the last hot lap in Q3.
We were anticipating a wild wet qualifying session and it delivered! The FP3 session was cancelled and no one was sure whether we will have a Quali session or not. The Quali did go through albeit with a 46 minute delay.
Q1: Perez out, George in Q2
In the event almost all of Q1 ran to schedule without interruption. Lap times steady fell throughout, but a largely flawless show of driving by the field kept cars out of barriers.
Grid positions kept changing by the second as cars were trying to find grip on the rain soaked Red Bull track. The biggest surprise of Q1 was the elimination of Sergio Perez. Racing Point has been very impressive right since the 2020 testing in Barcelona. Perez was third yesterday in FP2 and expectations were high from him. Unfortunately his car just couldn’t find the grip in the wets and he became a victim of the situation.
On the other hand George Russell took advantage of the adverse conditions to secure Williams’ first appearance in Q2 for more than a year
Other drivers who got eliminated in Q1 were Kimi, Latifi, Antonio and Grosjean.
Q2: Charles out
Lewis and Max swapped quickest times throughout the second part of qualifying, ending up separated by a tenth of a second. They both were half a second faster than the rest, led by Lando Norris who took his first podium of his career last week,
Last week only one Ferrari made a cut for Q3 and this quali was no different, albeit the other driver Charles Leclerc was left out this time. He went on hop laps a couple of time but just couldn’t better his pace. Sebastian Vettel had a messy moment on the kerbs at the exit of turn one, but gathered it up and claimed the final place in the top 10 by a tenth of a second from his team mate.
The two Ferraris were followed, impressively, by Russell’s Williams in 12th place. Other drivers eliminated in Q2 were Stroll, Kvyat and Magnussen.
Q3: Lewis triumphs, Max second
The conditions had visibly worsened further as the final 10 drivers took to the track for the pole position shoot-out. Verstappen set the pace initially, but Hamilton unleashed the potential of the Mercedes with his final two runs.
Lewis was dominant right from the beginning. He set the gold standard and kept on improving with every lap.
Red Bull told Verstappen “we’ll give you all the performance for this final lap”, and he began his decisive effort with the fastest time of anyone through sector one. But Hamilton, running behind him, soon pegged that back. Verstappen remained on course for a substantial improvement in his time, but as he reached turn nine he found a pit-bound Vettel at the apex.
The Red Bull snapped sideways, and though Verstappen’s awesome reflexes kept it out of the wall, his chance to improve was gone. Nonetheless he secured the second spot on the front row.
Both Gasly and Ocon were mighty impressive in the wets, punching above their weights and getting P5 and P8 respectively. Albon and Bottas were strictly OK, so were Daniel and Sebastian.
Last week Lando was very impressive, scoring a podium and beating his much experienced team mate Carlos. This week the tables have turned. Carlos did a great job getting to P3. Lando was good too but ended up being P6. Further he will be getting 3 grid penalties tomorrow. Lando will have to work hard tomorrow.
Final Quali classification :-
Race day will be very exciting with all the mixed up grid. Expect a stunner in the dry weather tomorrow!!