Defending Formula One champion Max Verstappen claimed the pole for Sunday’s Austrian GP in qualifying on Friday.
The Red Bull Racing driver posted the fast lap of 1:04.984 around the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile. It is Verstappen’s third pole of the year. He won from the pole the first two times, at Italy and Canada.
Verstappen won the pole over the two Ferrari drivers. Charles Leclerc was second, trailing Verstappen by 0.029 seconds.Â
Carols Sainz, who won his first career F-1 race last weekend at Silverstone in England, qualified third 0.082 seconds behind Verstappen’s time.
A 24-lap sprint race on Saturday will set the final grid for the grand prix, although ‘pole position’ was awarded to Verstappen.
The top five was completed by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Mercedes’ George Russell.
Both Russell and his teammate Lewis Hamilton suffered misfortune during their qualifying runs.
Hamilton caused a red flag with five minutes and 29 seconds left in round three when he lost control, skidded through gravel and hit the wall in Turn 7.
“I’m incredibly disappointed in myself ultimately and so sorry to the team,” Hamilton said. “Everyone worked so hard to put the car together -and I never like to bring it back damaged. I don’t have an answer right now to what happened. I lost the back end in Turn 7 and that was that. I was encouraged to see our performance, though. I think we were fighting for a top three start – and we weren’t expecting to be that close. That’s a huge positive for the team. I’m starting quite far back, and I’m not sure what’s possible from there. We have the Sprint tomorrow as well as the race on Sunday; hopefully tomorrow I can make up for some lost time.”
Russell followed him after a 11-minute stoppage, losing control in the final turn and winding up in a tire barrier, damaging his rear wing.
“I think that was our best qualifying session of the year in terms of pure pace – and the worst in terms of the outcome,” Russell said. “Racing can be like that sometimes. I could have been P4 this afternoon and I was one tenth up on my lap, and absolutely went for it because I thought there was a chance of P3. I’m feeling fine physically – but I’m concerned about the car. I hope we can recover it.”
Click here for the qualifying results.
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