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F1 Sprint Qualifying results: Max Verstappen thunders past Lando Norris at Red Bull Ring f,sprint,qualifying,results,max,verstappen,thunders,past,lando,norris,at,red,bull,ring,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one,2024-formula-one

On: June 28, 2024 By: admin

The roar told the story

Following the checkered flag in SQ3, it looked as if McLaren had locked out the front row. Oscar Piastri put his MCL38 on provisional pole with a banger of a lap, only to see Lando Norris nip him with a thunderous lap of his own.

But on the track, Max Verstappen was looming.

The Dutch driver was screaming around Red Bull Ring, pushing his RB20 to the ultimate edge. And as he cut the line with his own final push lap in SQ3, you did not need to look at the timing boards to see the result.

You just needed to hear the crowd.

The Red Bull-friendly crowd roared to life as Verstappen’s lap rocketed him to the top of the timing sheets, securing yet another pole position for one of the sport’s greatest drivers. The sea of orange in the crowd roared to life, and the orange flares overcame the mass of humanity watching on.

Their hero had done it yet again.

”Everything has been working really well. Good start to the weekend, I’m happy with today,” said Verstappen to Davide Valsecchi trackside.

Asked about the threat Norris could pose, Verstappen was his usual calm, cool, and collected self.

“I mean, we’ll find out tomorrow,” began Verstappen. “I’m not really too stressed about it. I’m gonna enjoy my eventing and we’ll try it again tomorrow.”

And if today’s performance from Verstappen is any indication, he might enjoy his day tomorrow as well.

Here are more winners and losers from F1 Sprint Qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix, as well as the full results:

Winner: Logan Sargeant

Logan Sargeant was eventually eliminated in SQ2 and will start the F1 Sprint Race in P15. In addition, what might have been a lap that put him into SQ3 was deleted due to exceeding track limits. “I didn’t get T1 and T3 right,” admitted Sargeant after SQ2.

But this was still a win for the American driver, who is facing a very uncertain future in the sport.

Sargeant advanced into SQ2, ahead of teammate Alexander Albon. It was the first time in his F1 career that he qualified ahead of Albon, marking a personal achievement for the Williams driver.

This might not be enough to save Sargeant’s spot at Williams, given the speculation about options such as Carlos Sainz Jr. for the team starting in 2025, but this could be a sign that Sargeant is continuing to improve his racecraft. Performances such as this could see Sargeant emerge as an option elsewhere if Williams truly moves in a different direction for 2025 as is expected.

Loser: Daniel Ricciardo

With the caveat that this is just F1 Sprint Qualifying and the big points are still to come this weekend, if you are Daniel Ricciardo this is not how you want the week to start.

The Austrian Grand Prix began with rumors swirling regarding Ricciardo’s future in the sport, with Dr. Helmut Marko outlining how the command could come from on high to put Liam Lawson into a seat at Visa Cash App RB F1 Team and noted F1 journalist Joe Saward speculating that such a move could happen this summer. That led to Ricciardo himself addressing his uncertain future during media day Thursday, with an acknowledgment that he needed improved performance to solidify his spot at VCARB.

Being eliminated in SQ1 — and seeing Yuki Tsunoda advance into SQ2 — is not the start to the weekend you want if you are Ricciardo.

Again, there is a lot of time left on the track this weekend, and the big points start coming on Saturday with qualifying for the Grand Prix. But Ricciardo needs to step up his game if he is going to keep his spot, something the driver himself admitted on Thursday.

Winners: Alpine

The progress continues over at Alpine.

Yet again both Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly advanced into the final segment of qualifying, with both drivers moving into SQ3 on Friday. While both Alpine drivers finished at the back of that group — with Ocon set to start the F1 Sprint Race in P8 and Gasly back in P9 — it is another sign that the team is moving in the right direction.

Sure, you can point to the fact that the only driver they beat in SQ3 was Charles Leclerc, who did not post a time due to a stall on pit lane shortly before the session ended, but you can also point to how close Ocon was to Sergio Pérez on merit. The Red Bull driver posted a 1:06.008 in SQ3, while Ocon posted a 1:06.101.

That is not a large margin at all.

Alpine has been talking about progress for weeks now, starting with their first point of the season at the Miami Grand Prix. But the progress is truly taking shape with their recent results, as they scored double-points finishes in each of the last two weekends. Given where Ocon and Gasly start tomorrow, they have a chance to keep that streak alive.

Something unimaginable when the season began, given how they started the 2024 campaign.

Loser: Charles Leclerc

Generally speaking, you want to put in your best push lap at the absolute end of a session, because the track will have “rubbered in” as much as possible, leading to the best possible time.

That led to an amusing situation during SQ3 as the session began, and the final ten waited in their respective garages. As the clock ticked down, some drivers, such as George Russell, started to get impatient, with Russell saying to his team “we need to get on with it” before the session came to a close.

Eventually the ten drivers lumbered out of the garage, but unfortunately for Charles Leclerc, his SF-24 went through an anti-stall as he rode down pit lane. While Leclerc was able to get his car going again, he could not get his push lap started before the checkered flag flew, and he ended up not posting a time.

That means he will start the F1 Sprint Race down in P10.

Leclerc can still make up some spots on the grid in the F1 Sprint Race itself, and perhaps salvage a result on Saturday. But he will be fighting at the back end of the points to start, and not up front where he wanted to be.

Winners: McLaren

Following the Monaco Grand Prix, it looked as if the potential fight at the top of the Constructors’ Championship was a two-way fight between Red Bull and Ferrari.

Since then, McLaren has crashed the party.

And then some.

Friday’s F1 Sprint Qualifying session showed again that McLaren has true pace this season, and for a moment it looked as if the front row would be all orange when the F1 Sprint Race began tomorrow. Lando Norris was on provisional pole, with Oscar Piastri right beside him.

As he has done so many times before Max Verstappen answered that challenge, rocketing to the top of the timing sheets, but when the lights go out tomorrow two McLarens will be at the front once more, with a chance to bring home some critical points in that three-way fight.

Furthermore, given where Ferrari finds themselves on the grid for tomorrow’s Sprint Race, McLaren has a chance to pull even closer to the Scuderia in the standings.

Zooming out for a moment, the pace from the MCL38 we have seen today illustrates that yet again, Norris could be primed to challenge Verstappen in the Austrian Grand Prix itself. That story has yet to be told, and tomorrow’s Qualifying session could provide more twists and turns, but McLaren has certainly put themselves in the mix given their recent form, and today’s F1 Sprint Qualifying session is just the latest evidence of that fact.

Losers: Sauber

The tough times roll on for Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

Both drivers were eliminated in SQ1 on Friday, with Bottas finishing P18 and Zhou at the back of the field, in P20.

Sauber is still seeking their first point of the 2024 F1 season, and given where they are set to start the F1 Sprint Race on Saturday, it seems apparent that the first result will not come in that event.

More worrisome might be the lack of pace they showed in both SQ1 as well as Friday’s only practice session, which saw Zhou in P14 and Bottas in P15. That was not enough to get them into SQ2, and that pace could see them struggle again in qualifying for the Grand Prix itself.

Austrian Grand Prix: Haas hoping to return to the points at Red Bull Ring austrian,grand,prix,haas,hoping,to,return,to,the,points,at,red,bull,ring,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one,2024-formula-one

On: June 26, 2024 By: admin

Haas last added to their account in the F1 Sprint Race at the Miami Grand Prix, when Nico Hülkenberg parlayed a tenth-place finish in qualifying for the F1 Sprint Race into a seventh-place result in the F1 Sprint Race itself, earning two critical points for the team.

With Formula 1 returning to the F1 Sprint format this weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix, can Haas return to the points?

It has been a difficult stretch for the team since Miami, with their best chance for points coming in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola. That weekend saw Hülkenberg qualify tenth, but he finished in P11, one spot out of the points. Since then they have been left on the outside looking in, including a double DNF in Monaco due to an opening-lap collision involving Sergio Pérez.

Their recent struggles opened the door for Alpine, whose own success the past few weeks — with six points over two race weekends — has seen the French outfit climb above them in the Constructors’ Championship standings. Alpine now sits seventh in the table with eight points, one point — and place — ahead of Haas with seven points.

As Haas heads to Red Bull Ring along with the rest of the grid for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, they are hopeful that recent success at that circuit will aid their quest for points.

“It’s a short track that packs in a lot of fun,” said Hülkenberg in the team’s media preview. “The length of the circuit means it bunches us all up over qualifying, which is a challenge, but we have two opportunities as it’s a Sprint. Last year I scored points around the Red Bull Ring, so I know it can be done, and we want to be back scoring points, so that’s the mission in Spielberg.”

On the other side of the garage Kevin Magnussen — who is hoping to have his F1 future resolved “soon” — is wary that the many high-speed corners in Austria could pose a problem for the team’s VF-24.

“It’s a fun track; I’ve got some good memories from the Red Bull Ring, that’s where we’ve had our best team result so I’m looking forward to going there again,” described Magnussen. “We have quite an efficient car so hopefully with our good straight-line speed we can be good there. There’s still a fair number of high-speed corners, which is perhaps not our strength, but we seem to be pretty consistently good at most tracks. I’m just looking forward to a fun Sprint weekend.”

Haas Race Engineer Mark Slade walked through the variety of corners Red Bull Ring offers, and how each may, or may not, suit the team’s challenger.

“One of the main things about the Red Bull Ring is that it’s a very short lap so it gets busy, particularly in practice and qualifying. It’s a nice mixture of low-, medium-, and high-speed corners, and obviously in a spectacular setting so it looks amazing, and it does provide quite a significant challenge for us when setting the car up,” described Slade. “We’ve had some issues with medium-speed corners, so we’re expecting to have to manage that, it’s going to be a challenge for us, but on the other hand in low-speed corners, we’ve generally been very good at them and we think we’ve taken a step forward in high-speed corners recently. We’ll see how we get on, but we’ve got a plan of course.”

While many teams have addressed the challenges a compressed F1 Sprint week puts in front of them, Slade outlined how for a team like Haas, there are added benefits to the condensed schedule.

“There is a lot of extra work for a Sprint, especially in amongst a triple-header, but it also makes it very interesting, it’s all a part of Formula 1,” said Slade. “You have to be realistic that you’re not going to be able to do everything you’d like to do with one practice session, so you have to pick the most important points that you think are relevant to getting the best out of the car in both the Sprint and the race and work to achieve those objectives – it’s a very compressed, highly edited run plan.

“The format of a Sprint is different from previous years, so you can afford to be a little bit more experimental in the Sprint race because points only go to eighth place, and realistically we’re chasing that last points-paying position so it means we can try things that we wouldn’t necessarily have tried, knowing we can change things for the race.”

Slade and the rest of the team get their first crack at Red Bull Ring this Friday.

F1 Spanish Grand Prix: What comes next in the Red Bull-McLaren-Ferrari fight? f,spanish,grand,prix,what,comes,next,in,the,red,bull,mclaren,ferrari,fight,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one,2024-formula-one

On: June 17, 2024 By: admin

Two weeks ago the Formula 1 grid arrived in Montreal with visions of a true title fight on the minds of fans and drivers alike. “I don’t think either championship is over by any means,” Oscar Piastri declared to me when I sat down with the McLaren driver for an exclusive interview following his second-place finish in the Monaco Grand Prix.

“The Constructors’ [Championship] I would say is still open. We’re still a third of the way through the year. So it’s definitely still all to play for. I would say, of course, we’re at a bit of a disadvantage being as far back as we are, but it’s certainly not impossible,” continued Piastri “And yeah, I think even in the Drivers’ Championship, it’s not done and dusted yet.”

However, Max Verstappen had something to say about that latter point in Montreal.

Verstappen’s win in the Canadian Grand Prix, coupled with a DNF for Charles Leclerc, his closest challenger in the Drivers’ Championship, meant the Red Bull driver pulled 25 points further head of his nearest threat. Even with Lando Norris’ P2 in Montreal, Verstappen’s first-place finish saw him gain a few more points on the McLaren driver.

Now, the Constructors’ Championship was another matter. Sergio Pérez suffered a DNF of his own, so while Verstappen added 25 points to Red Bull’s account with his win, Norris’ P2 and Piastri’s P4 saw McLaren bank 28 points in the Canadian Grand Prix. Those two results, coupled with the Ferrari double DNF, meant the field on the Constructors’ side of things tightened up even more in Montreal.

As Piastri said, neither championship is “done and dusted” just yet. And things have only tightened more in the Constructors’ Championship these past few weeks.

Will things tighten even more in Barcelona? That is surely the biggest storyline to watch this week as the F1 grid heads to the Spanish Grand Prix.

But it is not the only one.

What awaits on the driver market front?

Will the fluid driver transfer market deliver more news this week?

With the F1 world descending upon Barcelona, the focus likely shifts to Carlos Sainz, Jr. The Spanish driver has yet to confirm his plans for the 2025 season, when Lewis Hamilton slides into the seat Sainz currently occupies at Ferrari.

Rumors have surrounded Sainz ever since that announcement, with teams such as Mercedes, Sauber — soon to become the Audi works team — and most recently Williams linked with the accomplished driver.

Late last week reports surfaced that despite expectations that Sainz would move to Sauber, ahead of the transition to Audi, that Williams was in the driver’s seat to land the driver. According to these reports, Williams has offered Sainz a four-year deal, giving the driver a potential out after two seasons if he believes the team has not made sufficient progress in his mind.

Of course, nothing is official until ink is put to paper, and Sainz himself has brushed aside various reporting already this season.

“The only thing I can tell you is there is nothing locked in. I’ve seen reports, I don’t know if it’s in Spain, people saying I’ve signed. I look at those things and it makes me laugh because I remember seeing reports three months ago that I had signed for Mercedes, reports that I had signed for Red Bull. Now obviously those places are not going to happen,” said Sainz earlier this month.

“So it’s funny now seeing people say I’ve signed for Williams. It makes me laugh that this goes a bit unpunished for some media person. It concerns me that people can get away with that kind of stuff,” added Sainz. “When I have something to announce, you guys will be the first to know and I will be here openly talking about my future.”

Now Sainz is just one of the drivers yet to announce his future plans. Other drivers we are waiting to hear from include Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon, and more. But with the grid in Sainz’s home country, it is fair to turn our thoughts to an announcement from him first.

The future of F1 in Barcelona

As the grid arrives in Barcelona for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, the future of Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on the F1 grid is in severe doubt. At the start of this calendar year it was announced that the Spanish Grand Prix will move to a new street circuit in Madrid beginning in 2026, on a track that will city’s exhibition center.

The new location will extremely accessible for fans, as the new circuit will be just five minutes away from Madrid-Barajas Adolfo Suarez airport, and near local Metro and train stations. According to the announcement, “ … it is estimated that 90% of fans will be able to travel to the paddock via public transport, while those staying in local accommodation will be a short walk away from the venue.”

While that might be great news for fans, it calls into question the future of an event in Barcelona.

Will Spain soon host two races, or will the new circuit in Madrid remain the sole race on Spanish soil going forward? Or perhaps Barcelona will again host F1 pre-season testing, as it did until 2023, when the site of pre-season testing was moved to Bahrain.

The next step in the never-ending development wars

We are truly in the thick of the 2024 F1 season, and when you add in the layer of a true title fight shaping up — at least when it comes to the Constructors’ Championship — every upgrade matters.

And as you might expect, teams are bringing a host of upgrades to Barcelona ahead of the upcoming tripleheader (more on that in a second).

Andrea Stella, the McLaren Team Principal, teased some upcoming upgrades for the Woking-based outfit recently. “For the coming races, we will have some upgrades, but they won’t be a single kind of big upgrade like we have seen over the last 12 months,” said Stella. “This is more some individual components where we found a little bit of performance and rather than waiting to deploy everything together once ready we take it track side.

“So I won’t say what but we will see some new stuff coming over the few coming races.”

McLaren, thanks to a P2 from Lando Norris and a P4 from Oscar Piastri last time out, actually gained three points in their chase of Red Bull at the top of the Constructors’ standings. And with Ferrari dealt a double DNF in Canada, McLaren pulled 28 points closer to the Scuderia, and they now trail Ferrari by just 40 points.

While Mercedes is a bit farther back in that fight, the Silver Arrows are coming off their best weekend of the year, with George Russell notching a podium finish in Montreal. That result comes as the team has been rolling out a series of upgrades, starting with the Miami Grand Prix. That package has included a new front wing, with Russell utilized in the Monaco Grand Prix and then Lewis Hamilton utilized in Montreal.

But the Silver Arrows are not done, as a new floor is coming for the W15.

“I think definitely, since Imola, we’ve taken the right steps and put parts on the car that are working, something that we were struggling in the past couple of years,” said Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff recently. “Now directionally we seem to be adding performance every weekend and we have new stuff coming also, new parts coming in Barcelona that should help us. So I would very much hope that we can continue this positive trajectory.”

While the new floor is a big component, and a new front wing is something certainly visible to the naked eye, Wolff outlined that Mercedes has been bringing many new components these past few weeks, some of which might not be visible to the untrained eye.

“Sometimes when you bring a highly-visible part like a bodywork or front wing, this is pretty much the talk of what has changed the performance,” added the Mercedes boss.

“But the truth is we have, over the last three races, brought so many new parts, visible and invisible for the eye, that have contributed milliseconds to more performance. I think this is where those marginal gains then have that positive effect. That was just a huge effort of the factory, so I think the wheel has started to get some real motion on it.”

As for Ferrari, the Scuderia planned on bringing their latest set of upgrades later this season, but reports out of Maranello indicate that they may push those new components out for the Spanish Grand Prix, given the disaster that was the Canadian Grand Prix for the team. According to Formu1a.uno, Ferrari was targeting Silverstone for another aggressive package, but the team may be “ … accelerating production times to introduce the most important innovations already in Barcelona.”

Will that truly be the case? We’ll know more in a few days.

Finally there is Red Bull. Will they have some upgrades of their own in Barcelona?

Team Principal Christian Horner hinted recently that they indeed might have some new components ready for Barcelona. “It’s a possible yes,” said Horner when asked if Red Bull would roll out some upgrades in Barcelona. “We’re closer to the top of the curve, so you get into a law of diminishing returns. But there will be subtle upgrades over the summer months.”

As the F1 schedule hits the summer the action on the track — and in the factories — heats up.

Round 1 of a tripleheader

When the 2024 F1 schedule was announced, many noticed that the calendar called for three different triple headers.

The first is upon us.

This weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix kicks off three straight weeks of racing. Following the Spanish Grand Prix, the grid will head to Red Bull Ring, for the Austrian Grand Prix. That weekend adds even one more layer, as the Austrian Grand Prix is one of six F1 Sprint race weekends.

Following Austria, the grid then heads to historic Silverstone, the site of the British Grand Prix.

Beyond the usual challenges an F1 week presents for teams and drivers, having three straight weeks of racing adds even more hurdles — and potential problems — for the ten teams to endure.

So buckle up friends, as a lot of F1 action is heading your way these next three weeks.

33 soon … ?

When the grid arrived in Barcelona a year ago, Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso were in many ways the talk of the F1 world. Aston Martin was still second in the Constructors’ Championship standings, one point ahead of third-place Mercedes. As for Alonso himself, he was in third place, 12 points behind Sergio Pérez. As you might expect from that place in the standings, the veteran driver was in fine form, having five podiums in six starts.

That beginning of the 2023 season led to talk of “33 soon?”, the rallying cry that followed Alonso’s quest for his elusive 33rd grand prix victory. With the grid arriving in Barcelona, there was hope that perhaps Alonso would earn that elusive victory in front of a home crowd.

However, if anything the results in the 2023 Spanish Grand Prix told the story of what was to come for Aston Martin down the stretch a year ago. Alonso finished down in seventh — behind teammate Lance Stroll — and he would see the podium just three more times over the rest of the year.

“I think sixth and seventh positions were the maximum for us. I thought our performance seemed better in qualifying, so I think we need to look at why and aim to bounce back for Canada,” said Alonso after the race. “We still scored some solid points and we had no risk at the end of the race. I want to thank the fans for their passion, energy and support this weekend. It was very emotional and special for me.”

Canada was one of those final three podiums for Alonso in 2023, as he finished P2 behind Max Verstappen. But that elusive 33rd victory has yet to materialize for the veteran driver.

Can he make some magic happen at home this weekend?