Styrian GP : Max Verstappen clinches Pole ahead of Bottas and Hamilton

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen takes pole position for 2021 Styrian GP ahead of Mercedes duo Valtteri Bottas in P2 and Lewis Hamilton in P3.

First ever pole for Red Bull in their home track and first back-to-back Pole for Red Bull since 2013 season.

After taking back-to-back poles, The Dutch man said, “It’s been a very good weekend, the car has been good to drive, super happy to be on pole here at home. It’s a small track, but really hard to get a good lap out of it. I’m sure again tomorrow it will be very tight.“

Second placed Bottas will start the race from P5 on the Grid, due to three place grid drop penalty for his FP2 pit lane spin. The Fin is disappointed with his penalty and vowing to fightback in tomorrow’s race.

“I would have preferred to start second, in practice I struggled a bit but we found the right direction. With Tsunoda, I lost a couple of tenths there so maybe there was more to come.“– said Valtteri Bottas.

Lewis Hamilton struggled to match Verstappen’s pace throughout qualifying, but he will start right behind the Dutchman on the starting grid due to his teammate’s penalty. The Brit thinks Red Bull have quarter of seconds advantage over Mercedes in raw pace and he want’s some rain for tomorrow’s race to make things more interesting.

“Well done to Max, they’ve been so fast this weekend. Front row after Valtteri’s penalty – I’ll give it everything I’ve got. They’ve had a quarter of a second on us all weekend, so it will be interesting to see if we can manage it – I don’t think we have the raw pace to overtake them. We’ll be giving it everything. Maybe it rains, who knows.” 

McLaren driver Lando Norris qualifies in impressive P4 ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in P5, with Bottas’ penalty both drivers will start from the second row of the grid, one place above from their qualifying position.

Pierre Gasly’s impressive form in 2021 continues as the French man qualifies in P6 ahead of his good friend and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc in P7. Gasly’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda makes it two AlphaTauri’s in top-10 after qualifying in P8, but unfortunately he was handed three place grid penalty by stewards for impeding Valtteri Bottas in Q3.

The Young Japanese driver will start the race from 11th on the grid, with that ninth placed Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll in P10 and Williams George Russell in P11 will move one place up on the starting grid for tomorrow’s race.

Q2- Some familiar names dropped out, Medium Tyre for Front Runners

In a small track like Red Bull Ring, Qualifying will be very tight and few hundredth of seconds can make a difference.

But Williams driver George Russell missed out Q1 by Eight Thousandths of a second, The Brit qualified in P11(matching his career best qualifying position) but will start the race in P10 with a free tyre choice.

Carlos Sainz once again struggled to match his teammate’s qualifying pace for Ferrari. The Spaniard comes home in P12 ahead of McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo in P13, who lost to his impressive teammate once again.

The Aussie is not impressed with his position after showing promising pace in the practice sessions, “I don’t know, we were quite a bit off. Definitely to be there [P13] after yesterday. In some areas, I felt I was driving to the limit of the car, but yeah we were slower pretty much everywhere. It seemed like yesterday was a long time ago.“– said Ricciardo.

Another experienced driver to miss out Q1 is four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel, the German struggled with understeer throughout the qualifying session as he comes home in P14. Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi qualifies in P15 to round off Q2 session.

Vettel and Sainz both had track times deleted for track limit infringements in their final run of Q2.

Eliminated in Q2: Russell, Sainz, Ricciardo, Vettel, Giovinazzi

Q1- Esteban Ocon failed to make the cut

Nicholas Latifi qualified in P16 ahead of Esteban Ocon in P17. The Canadian was in P8 before falling dramatically to P16 in the final runs of Q1. What happened to Ocon? Alpine once again looked so strong on Friday, but just like in France they couldn’t quite replicate it come qualifying. That’s his second Q1 exit of the season, having also fallen by the wayside early on in Bahrain.

Kimi Raikkonen become usual member of bottom five so far in this season. The Fin comes home in P18 ahead of Haas rookie duo Mick Schumacher in P19 and his Russian teammate Mazepin in P20.

Eliminated in Q1: Latifi, Ocon, Raikkonen, Schumacher, Mazepin