Tag: ring

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

F1 Sprint Qualifying results Max Verstappen thunders past Lando Norris
On: 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

Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

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

F1 Grand Prix of Austria - Previews

Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images

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: 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.

Derrick White got his face smashed in for Celtics to prove how bad he wants a ring derrick,white,got,his,face,smashed,in,for,celtics,to,prove,how,bad,he,wants,a,ring,sbnation,com,front-page,nba

On: By: admin


The Boston Celtics have a chance Monday night to capture their 18th NBA Finals title. And they are putting it all on the line in pursuit of that championship.

Literally.

With the minutes ticking down in the first half, Boston held a 52-39 lead over the visiting Dallas Mavericks in Game 5, and were locked in on the defensive end. Dallas forward P.J. Washington stumbled off the dribble and tried to shove a pass in the direction of Dereck Lively, but the ball was knocked loose by Jayson Tatum.

In the ensuing melee for the loose ball, Derrick White of the Celtics absolutely laid out trying to corral the ball, before catching an entire face full of the parquet floor at T.D. Garden:

If you dare, you can watch the close-up replay of White’s effort:

In the moment, it looked as if Boston would lose the player that has been the “oomph” of their roster since he was acquired via trade during the 2022 season. White made his way to the Celtics bench after staying down on the floor for a moment, and was looked at by Celtics trainers:

He returned to the game immediately after.

And buried a three moments later to give Boston a 60-42 lead.

Look at this guy:

Between that and another heave at the buzzer from Payton Prichard, Boston has had one heck of a first half.

And they are 24 minutes away from their 18th banner.

Chiefs Super Bowl ring error; who’s the Bryson DeChambeau of the NFL chiefs,super,bowl,ring,error,who,s,the,bryson,dechambeau,of,the,nfl,sbnation,com,front-page,nfl,dot-com-grid-coverage

On: By: admin


We have passed the midway point in June and have just over a month to go until NFL training camps kick off in earnest. Thankfully House of the Dragon is back to help us bide a bit more time.

The offseason drought makes talking about the NFL a bit more challenging than usual but that only makes it more fun. Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa are once again up for the latest edition of The Skinny Post to discuss all things Football League of National.

Some required reading so that all of the jokes and points hit you properly:

  • The Kansas City Chiefs are probably mad at their ring designer
  • Bryson DeChambeau won the U.S. Open on Sunday
  • There is a new fantasy football punishment everyone has thoughts on

Let’s begin.

The Kansas City Chiefs messed up their Super Bowl rings and that is hilarious

Michael:

If I didn’t make it abundantly clear in the first edition of The Skinny Post, I am a Chargers fan so this bit of news was a real juicy morsel when it dropped last week. Now let’s be frank, I’d trade my life savings and the deed to my house if it meant the Chargers could win a Super Bowl in my lifetime but that won’t stop me from dunking on the Chiefs when I can.

This is one of those moments.

Kansas City unveiled their latest Super Bowl rings and while they’re as gorgeous as you’d expect, there was a minor mistake that was missed. Inside the ring, the Chiefs listed all of their opponents they defeated en route to winning the championship along with their seed for the postseason. However, the Chiefs engraved a “7” next to the Dolphins, denoting them as the seventh seed. Here’s the thing: The Steelers were the seventh seed while the Dolphins were the sixth seed.

I cannot express just how embarrassing this must be for the back-to-back Super Bowl champs. It’s so embarrassing they may end up finishing last in the AFC West this season. The expected ridicule will simply be too much for Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid.

It was a great dynasty while it lasted though!

RJ:

Objectively speaking, the ring thing is a disaster. Nobody can change my mind on this.

In our day and age where teams focus on the symbolism and meaning behind things like how many diamonds are in the ring and whatnot, messing up a crucial detail is a bad look and hilarious from the outside. What’s more is that it seems like the reason Kansas City put the seeds in the first place was to emphasize how tough their path to their latest title was given that they beat the Buffalo Bills (No. 2), Baltimore Ravens (No. 1) and San Francisco 49ers (No. 1). They literally beat both No 1 seeds and that is in fact ridiculously impressive.

So with this being the case… the mistake in question actually makes their playoff path look less impressive. The flub makes the Dolphins look worse than they were, which is once again hilarious given everything involved. Ultimately a detail on your third Super Bowl ring in five years is the pinnacle definition of rich people problems, but imagine being the person who signed off on this getting the phone call about it all once the internet saw the rings.

Under the radar players who could completely change perception with a title

RJ:

As noted up top, Bryson DeChambeau won the U.S. Open on Sunday, his second major championship. Incidentally both of them are U.S. Open victories.

I am a massive golf fan (shout out to our colleagues here at SB Nation over at Playing Through for being a daily read of mine) and in case you aren’t then what you need to know is that Bryson was a bit, um, unpopular over the last few years.

It is difficult to explain exactly why Bryson was so not liked, given that it is a lot of things. His personality rubbed people the wrong way (he had a lot to do with that), but in the last year or so he has really turned things around.

DeChambeau lost golf’s most recent major championship (the PGA Championship at Valhalla) to Xander Schauffele by one stroke, and even as someone who appreciates Xander a ton I was so bummed for Bryson. It was confusing.

Watching Bryson get it done on Sunday at Pinehurst and taking down a fan favorite like Rory McIlroy in the process and being overwhelmingly happy for Bryson was such a weird sequence of emotions given everything up to this point. In the spirit of this… I wanted Michael and I to take a shot at figuring out which NFL players could elicit similar emotions.

Ultimately I think that the answer is Kirk Cousins. Netflix’s Quarterback really elevated Kirk’s reputation for a lot of people and his season-ending Achilles injury last year while he was playing great football seemed to pull even more people into his corner. Then there is also the fact that his new team in the Atlanta Falcons drafted Michael Penix Jr. right after paying Kirk to join them in the first place.

Imagine if Kirk led the Falcons to the Super Bowl this season? If Kirk was the person to slay the 28-3 demons? If Kirk were the one to do it all? Given everything that has happened up to this point?

Dare I say it would be Bryson DeChambeau winning the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.

Michael:

I’m going to hop into your neck of the woods and use Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott as my choice here.

Prescott is widely viewed as one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. Depending on who you ask, he probably varies anywhere between the top 15, top 10, and even the top 5 of NFL quarterbacks during some stretches of the season. The unfortunate part is that, despite being on a team that had both a top-5 offense and top-10 defense over the past three seasons, Prescott has not been able to guide the Cowboys out of the Divisional Round in three consecutive playoff appearances. He’s 2-5 in the playoffs and 1-3 since 2021. Those numbers are not becoming of a team that has been one of the best regular-season clubs of the past 10 years and has 12 wins in each of the past three seasons.

So similar to what you had to say about Kirk Cousins, the recent narrative around Prescott and the Cowboys could be flipped on its head were they to win their first Super Bowl since 1995. The thing is, maybe they need to stop being so successful during the regular season so the pressure isn’t nearly as high come the postseason? Maybe they should barely squeak into the playoffs and then they can play with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Thoughts? Prayers? Sounds like a steel-clad plan to me.

How we would approach the McDonald’s fantasy football eating punishment

Michael:

Alright so I loved this story when you sent it to me.

A guy got last place in his fantasy football league and his punishment was that he has to spend 24 hours inside a McDonald’s. However, he has the opportunity to “eat his way out” by consuming menu items, each of which are paired with a time amount that gets taken off the clock. So for example, if he eats a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, he gets 45 minutes taken off the clock. If he consumes an entire hotcakes and sausage combo meal, he gets an hour taken off.

Here is the full structure:

So now let’s talk how I would personally attack this thing.

If I began at the crack of dawn, I would start with a plethora of Sausage McMuffins with Egg. Normally I’m just an Egg McMuffin guy, but the additional sausage would provide 15 more minutes off the clock and that little slab of meat added won’t affect my overall stomach capacity. I would gorge myself on those until I simply couldn’t anymore. Maybe that’s six or seven of them which amounts to about 5 hours already gone. From there, I’d intermittently nap to pass the time and digest. When I wake, I’d consume another McMuffin or switch to the double cheeseburgers as the morning turns to afternoon.

While a McDouble is only 30 minutes off, a double cheeseburger is 45 minutes. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between the two, but it can’t be much of anything so we’re going with the item that takes more time off the clock.

If I can get out of there before the sun sets entirely, I’d be happy (and grossly full).

RJ:

Full disclosure: I sent this to a lot of people on Saturday morning, coincidentally while I was in the drive-thru at McDonald’s of all places. Life can be funny like that.

But my perspective on this is that the goal should not be to get out of there as quickly as possible. My goal would be to spend something like 7-8 hours physically in the building and spend the time writing, reading or watching something. Determining that getting out in an hour is the first step of acceptance here. You’ve got to lean into the ordeal.

Understanding that I’m trying to shave about 16 hours off I feel the need to say that as a kid I really enjoyed the hash browns from McDonald’s. I would eat around four in a single sitting… as a kid.

With the belly of an adult I really think that this would be the cheat code for me as my child-like order of four would knock out an hour at a time. Hash browns are also really small relative to everything else so I think I could do about 16 over the course of my first hour. After some time to settle I think I could repeat this and boom, half the time I want to take off is now gone. Presto, baby.

For the record I do not think I have had an actual hamburger from McDonald’s since around the time that I was crushing hash browns with regularity (as a Texan I am a Whataburger loyalist). That being said I think a cheeseburger is an easy mountain to climb four times to take another two hours off. Six to go.

I think at this point you kind of have to accept that this is where things start to suck so I would just do the “Big Breakfast with Hotcakes” three times to drag myself across the finish line.

Boom. Done. Easy.