Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen was in a class of one to take his fourth consecutive Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix pole position on Saturday with a time four-tenths of a second clear of his nearest challenger.
After succeding in Saturday morning’s Sprint, Verstappen, along with the rest of the Formula 1 field had to dust off, reset and go again for Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
Norris was just 0.098s shy of Verstappen in Sprint Qualifying on Friday and expectation pitted the two against each other in the fight for Sunday’s pole position.
However, Verstappen had no equal on Saturday afternoon and his pole-winning time was 0.404s faster than Norris’ best effort in second place.
A glance at the grandstands could fool one into thinking qualifying got underway at Zandvoort, with Verstappen’s orange army standing proud at the Red Bull Ring as the initial Q1 session got underway under glorious Austrian sunshine.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had a disappointing Friday Sprint qualifying as he failed to set a time in the top-10 shootout, but his Saturday GP qualifying got off to a strong start with the provisionally fastest time in Q1.
That was until Mercedes’ George Russell surpassed the Monegasque driver to take first place with his first run in Q1.
As the initial session headed into its final 10 minutes, Valtteri Bottas, Logan Sargeant, Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll were at risk of dropping out, but there was no guarantee those ahead would survive into Q2 at their expense.
Another flurry of on-track action saw Carlos Sainz top the timesheets, just 0.9s quicker than Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu in 20th with five minutes left to go in Q1, showing just how competitive the Formula 1 field has become in 2024.
The tight margins meant even Norris had to go for a third run, despite being provisionally in fourth.
Lewis Hamilton had to switch onto fresh softs to help lift him from 16th and a potential early elimination.
It was just Sainz, Oscar Piastri and Verstappen who stayed put in the pits as the remainder of the field sought to improve their times.
Those who failed to improve enough to advance were Alex Albon, in 16th and missing out by just 0.080s to Alonso, through by the skin of his teeth.
Stroll in the second Aston Martin wasn’t as lucky in 17th as the Silverstone squad continues to lack pace.
Bottas, Sargeant and Zhou rounded out the Q1 classification with all 20 drivers covered by just 0.798s.
That meant all Alpine, Haas and RB drivers advanced into Q2 and would be looking to see if they could sneak into the top-10 shootout with the front runners.
With the clock winding down to just 10 minutes remaining, only four drivers had set a time (Leclerc, both Alpines and Sainz), leading to a traffic jam of competitors exiting the pits as the clock went to single digits.
A 1:04.577s laptime from Verstappen saw him sitting with a handy 0.439s advantage over the rest of the field ahead of the final runs in Q2 as Gasly, Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg, Kevin Magnussen and Alonso sat in the elimination zone.
Despite his impressive pace, Verstappen joined in on the final few minutes of action in Q2, although he wouldn’t be troubled by the elimination zone whatsoever.
That didn’t stop him from pushing the benchmark to 1:04.469s on fresh soft tyres.
At the other end of the order, Ricciardo missed out on a Q3 appearance by 0.015s in 11th and he was joined by Gasly, who had a brief dalliance in the gravel at Turn 6 on his final push lap.
Magnussen, Tsunoda and Alonso – confirming Aston’s lacklustre pace, rounded out the Q2 classification.
Verstappen looked untouchable heading into Q3, but the picture of where the remaining nine drivers would wind up after the final 12-minute portion of qualifying was less clear.
With the first push runs complete it was no surprise to see Verstappen at the top thanks to a 1:04.426s laptime, giving him an advantage of over three tenths over Norris in second.
At this stage, it would take a herculean effort to stop Verstappen from taking pole position.
To cement matters the Dutchman improved to a 1:04.314s time to wrap up qualifying in style.
Norris secured a front-row spot for the second day in a row, but his team-mate Piastri, who provisionally qualified third had his final run deleted due to track limits and slipped down to seventh in the order as a result.
That elevated George Russell into third with a 1:04.840s lap-time, half a second back from pole.
Sainz took fourth with Hamilton rounding out the top-five.
Leclerc had another troublesome end to a qualifying session, running wide at Turns 6, 9 and 10 and wrecking his final lap, and likely the floor of his Ferrari en route to sixth.
Sergio Perez wound up eighth behind Piastri and nearly nine-tenths adrift of team-mate Verstappen.
That left Hulkenberg and Ocon to round out the top-10 with equally impressive showings for Haas and Alpine respectively.
