Good morning F1 fans
And welcome to our live coverage for Formula One’s “sprint Saturday” for the Austrian Grand Prix which is, in other words, a morning qualifying for this afternoon’s sprint race and then the actual sprint race later on in the day.
What do you think of the new sprint weekend format? This is the second edition of six this year, with qualifying for the main grand prix now done on Friday afternoon and is completely detached from any of the actual grand prix goings on. It’s an improvement, I think, and makes Saturdays that little bit better and also takes away most of the fairly meaningless practice sessions.
What was the big news from yesterday? Well, no real surprise that Max Verstappen took pole position for the sixth time in nine rounds this year, but there was perhaps a surprise that Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was so fast. He finished just 0.048sec away from Verstappen’s pole time. Yes, it’s a short lap but that is still encouraging. Carlos Sainz was also within two tenths of a second and in third. Ferrari’s problems have not really been in qualifying, though, they have been in the race, so let’s see how that goes tomorrow.
The other story in qualifying – other than Lando Norris putting his McLaren a superb fourth – was of Sergio Perez failing to make it into Q3 for a fourth successive time. And that is in a car that may well end the season as the most dominant in F1 history. He fell foul of track limits, had numerous laps deleted and will start Sunday’s race in 15th, assuming no further penalties.
What is the outlook for today? Well, I can tell you that, unlike yesterday, today is very soggy. The rain began around 9pm locally last night, with thunderstorms and has continued steadily since. The car parks are already starting to get a little muddy and whilst, at this point, there does not seem to be a great amount of standing water on the track, the rain is forecast to get heavier before the sprint shootout/qualifying begins at 11am local time.
The sprint race itself is at 3.30pm BST.
