Event: Austrian F1 Grand Prix
Track: Red Bull Ring
Weather: dry 25.4°C
Tarmac: dry 50.5°C
Humidity : 27.6%
Wind : 0.5 m/s E
Pressure: 936.4 bar
Max Verstappen scored his 7th F1 pole position of his career. The Dutchman did it during the 2021 Austrian Grand Prix qualifying session today. The Red Bull driver will start from P1 for the second time on Red Bull Ring. It was the 67th pole for Red Bull Racing.
Q1
After all drivers had set a lap time it was Max Verstappen who topped the timesheet with a 1:04.249 min. Surprisingly both Mercedes drivers were not 2nd and 3rd. McLaren driver Lando Norris beat them and was only +0.096s slower than Verstappen. Comeback man Fernando Alonso also pushed out a great lap in the Alpine and was even 3rd quickest!
With 5 minutes to go Nicholas Latifi (Williams), Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), Mick Schumacher (Haas) and Nikita Mazepin (Haas) had to improve to get into Q2. In the end only Gasly was able to improve enough to get into Q2. The French driver did what he had to do and pushed out Alfa Romeo driver Kimi Raikkonen.
Q2
The other Red Bull driver Sergio Perez went out as first try to drive a quick lap on the medium tyres to be able to start tomorrow's race on them. He clocked a 1:04.554 min and was 0.3s quicker than his first run on the softs in Q1.
The drivers in the drop zone with 5 minutes to go were Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) and Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo). Alonso drove a much slower lap on the soft tyres than his Q1.
Verstappen, Norris, Perez, Hamilton, Bottas, Sainz, Leclerc and Ricciardo had tied to qualify on the medium tyres up till now. Strangely both Ferrari driver didn't switch to the quicker red soft tyres to get into Q3 in their last stint.
When the finish flag dropped it was George Russell who got in Q3 on medium tyres with the Williams for the first time since Monza 2018. Alonso also was a lot quicker until the last corner when he got blocked by Sebastian Vettel in the Aston Martin. Vettel will certainly get a grid penalty for that, but that won't get Alonso into Q3. Both Ferrari didn't made it into Q3 for the first time this season.
Q3
After the first run for pole position Verstappen was quickest with a 1:03.720 min. Norris had a tremendous lap (+0.238s) and had put the McLaren in front of both Mercedes'. Hamilton was 3rd (+0.294s), Bottas 4th (+0329s), Perez 5th (+0498s), Gasly 6th (+0.769s), Vettel 7th (+0.860s), Tsunoda 8th (+0.922s), Stroll 9th (+1.700s) and Russell 10th without a time.
In the last run Verstappen didn't improve the pole time. He even got under threat of Lando Norris who was only +0.048s slower than Verstappen.
The pole time of last year's Austrian GP was a 1:02.939 min driven by Valtteri Bottas for the Mercedes team.
Qualifying Times 2021 Austrian GP
Pos | No | Driver | Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Laps |
1 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:04.249 | 1:03.927 | 1:03.720 | 15 |
2 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 1:04.345 | 1:04.415 | 1:03.768 | 18 |
3 | 11 | Sergio Pérez | Red Bull | 1:04.833 | 1:04.483 | 1:03.990 | 23 |
4 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:04.506 | 1:04.258 | 1:04.014 | 18 |
5 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:04.563 | 1:04.376 | 1:04.049 | 19 |
6 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 1:04.841 | 1:04.412 | 1:04.107 | 21 |
7 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | 1:04.967 | 1:04.518 | 1:04.273 | 21 |
8 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | 1:04.846 | 1:04.493 | 1:04.570 | 20 |
9 | 63 | George Russell | Williams | 1:04.907 | 1:04.553 | 1:04.591 | 15 |
10 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 1:04.927 | 1:04.547 | 1:04.618 | 21 |
11 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | 1:04.596 | 1:04.559 | 15 | |
12 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:04.906 | 1:04.600 | 15 | |
13 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | 1:04.977 | 1:04.719 | 15 | |
14 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | 1:04.472 | 1:04.856 | 9 | |
15 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | 1:04.782 | 15 | ||
16 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo | 1:05.009 | 9 | ||
17 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | 1:05.051 | 6 | ||
18 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 1:05.195 | 6 | ||
19 | 47 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | 1:05.427 | 9 | ||
20 | 9 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas | 1:05.951 | 9 |
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Good result for RB and Norris superb, 3 brits in the top ten, two young title contenders for the future, MB poor considering i think they said they had updates if im right?
Bottas so close in time to Lewis too .
I dont watch quali or race live, but fyi on the bbc sport f1 page radio commentary is live for both .
max is the man to beat.i think norris benefited from a slipstream off max .but fair play to him going well with mercedes power and all.
if the alpha tauri s could get in front of the mb s it would make my day.looking forward to the race.gotta say well done to perez as well
Absolutely on the PER shout-out. Checo is quietly doing a very good job for RB. I know that we are only a third into the season, but RB is looking good for WDC and WCC especially since everyone else seems to be locked in to concentrating on 2022.
I recken and this is lol opinion rather than hasily ill thought so called facts, as opposed to properly resourced ones, there something different, that come testing and 1st race 22 all the cars will look EXTREMELY similar and the pack will be as close as it is today ... !! at least i hope it is ..... and checo , yeah hes sort of always under the radar ive never praised him before , but hes hard to ignore in that Rb
Yes, great grid, if you lump Q2 and 3, 13 cars within a second and would have been 14 if ALO had not been balked on his flyer. AND, we now have a Brit Brigade of young chargers. Next season is looking good.....I hope.
Alpha tauri are flying as well gasly could put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Brilliant for AT 6 and 7, i think your right, if the front guys have an issue then AT will be right up there
trying to like the last post shrop but computer says no a lot
go gasly go ,go yuki go
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