Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped Sergio Perez and Lando Norris in F1’s second sprint shootout qualifying session, while Ferrari’s Austrian form faltered and Mercedes suffered disasters in Q1 and Q2.
The day started in rainy conditions at the Red Bull Ring and with sprint qualifying declared wet, the strict slick compound requirements for the compacted session were lifted and drivers were able to use whatever tires they wanted throughout.
In the end, apart from the fact that Williams did the first Q1 laps on intermediate tires, the drivers drove slicks throughout.
Verstappen made full use of the new soft tires he had saved and progressed smoothly in Friday’s qualifying to take the lead in the opening heats of the third quarter with a time of 1’04.613s ahead of Norris and Perez, where Carlos Sainz finished fourth and at that point new medium tires drove his lack of new softs.
Several drivers switched tire compounds for the final rounds of Q3, with Charles Leclerc leading the field after failing to set off immediately in Q3 to conserve his single set of new soft tyres.
That wasn’t enough to impress the front runners, however, as he couldn’t come close to matching his Friday night pace from pole position and at that point couldn’t even beat his teammate’s time on the harder rubber.
Verstappen then set the fastest time again in all three sectors and took pole for the sprint race. He was 0.173 seconds faster and clocked a time of 1:04.440 minutes.
Perez moved up to second while Norris was pushed back to third and Nico Hulkenberg shot brilliantly into fourth despite ending up carrying the Mediums.
Sainz switched to new soft tires for his second Q3 outing and although he improved he only managed fifth place. Leclerc completed a second run on the same soft tires which, while a personal best, was only fast enough for sixth place.
Then came Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, who also found time to switch to the mediums for the final Q3 runs.
Esteban Ocon and Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10.
In second qualifying, with Verstappen leading, Leclerc struggled late on as he was running on used soft tires and was 11th ahead of the closing times, but he did enough to progress – unlike Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly , Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries.
Gasly and Tsunoda, like Leclerc, showed their best on death but failed to advance into the top 10.
Tsunoda lost an earlier, even faster time due to a track limit violation, but was definitely not fast enough to get ahead of Hulkenberg into Q3.
George Russell also retired from his stage after suffering hydraulic failure at the end of the first quarter and although Mercedes mechanics were spotted working on his car in the middle section he did not go out on track.
In Q1, both Ferrari drivers faced opposing fates as Sainz spent most of the abridged 12-minute segment in the pits as his team had to fix a brake-by-wire problem at the rear of his car, which left him only the mechanics were available The system worked, the rear brakes overheated and began to smoke.
Sainz came out with 1:40 left and then shot brilliantly to the top of the stack in the opening section.
Leclerc was able to circulate and pitted late. After that, he struggled to get tire temperatures up compared to those who stayed outside.
He improved enough on his last attempt to jump out of the drop zone, but as the tide of final improvements began, he was moved back down the order and only progressed 0.001 seconds – faster, a fraction ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu.
Zhou had spun early in Q1 and clipped the still-wet inside curbs at Turn 9 and eventually retired ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who will now consider Sprint qualifying over to the race stewards as he appears to have finished at Turn 9 Leclerc was hampered Ferrari jumped into the pits late.
Hamilton was the worst injured in Q1 as he ran too far on the exit of Turn 10 and lost what would have been among the top times in the opening segment.
Then he was stuck in traffic and in a bizarre collision with Verstappen, who was driving down the pit lane, and the Brit failed to make the final attempt, leaving him stuck in 18th place.
Also eliminated in Q1 were Valtteri Bottas and Logan Sargeant.