It came as no surprise to see Max Verstappen secure the pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix given his recent stellar performances, but it was a bit of a shock for Mercedes to see Lando Norris and Sergio Perez also get ahead of their drivers.
While Friday’s practice sessions indicated that Mercedes found a reasonable step forward compared to their last weekend’s form at the Styrian Grand Prix, today’s warmer conditions slightly changed the picture. Both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas hoped for an improved performace, but they ultimately struggled for pace which saw them end up in P4 and P5 respectively. The result meant that there are no Mercedes cars in the top three for the first time in a dry qualifying session since Singapore 2017.
Elsewhere, McLaren was over the moon thanks to Lando Norris’ performance with the Bristol-born securing P2 for Round 8 of the 2021 season. Red Bull Ring has been a happy place for the Woking-based team with the last four qualifying sessions at the Spielberg-located track having yielded starting slots of P3, P3, P3 and now P2 for the British outfit.
Red Bull’s Mexican newcomer Sergio Perez also completed a successful qualifying session after his struggles during the practice sessions. The Mexican slotted in third behind his team mate Verstappen and Norris. The 31-year-old’s qualifying performance was one of his best results of his career as he has only qualified higher than this once in his career, when he was second in Imola earlier this season.
Charles Leclerc, 12th, 1:04.600
“Mixed feelings after today’s qualifying. On the one hand, we were aware of the risk of not making it into Q3, prioritising setting our fastest Q2 lap on the medium compound to suit our strategy. The lap itself was quite good. Unfortunately, some of our competitors finished ahead of us on the same compound, which is the disappointing side of it.
“Our race pace has been solid this weekend and we have a free choice of tyres for the start. We have to analyse exactly which strategy is the best for tomorrow, considering that there are quite a few cars ahead of us, some of which are starting on mediums. This makes things a bit more tricky, as our advantage has slightly lessened. We will give everything and make the best of it tomorrow.”
Carlos Sainz, 11th, 1:04.559
“Today we decided to take a bit more of a risk by trying to make it into Q3 using the medium tyre. After a decent first attempt with that tyre, we went for it and unfortunately missed the cut by only 6 thousandths of a second. I’m obviously not happy with that because it was extremely close and we couldn’t show the good progress we’ve made this week.
“These past few days, we worked hard on the balance, the set up and my driving style and we could have had a good Q3. Anyway, the race is tomorrow and our goal is to have another strong Sunday here in Austria and score as many points as possible.”
Esteban Ocon, 17th, 1:05.051
“Our pace hasn’t improved this weekend and, unfortunately, we’re back in the same spot. We tried some different things this week but we’re still lacking something. I felt like I had a good lap today, so, at the moment, there aren’t many answers, but we’ll keep thinking and keep finding solutions. I’ll focus on doing the best possible job and help the team move forward. I’ll race as hard as I can tomorrow to get some positions back and we will not give up.”
Fernando Alonso, 14th, 1:04.856
“Today we lost an opportunity to be in a better position than last week on the starting grid, perhaps P5 or P6. It was an unfortunate situation with Seb [Vettel], which his team should have managed better. It’s not Seb’s fault and, as drivers, we’re relying on our engineers to communicate things that are happening on track. It’s disappointing as we had the potential today.
„The car felt really good and probably the best it’s felt all season and it’s frustrating not to have the opportunity to reach Q3 with two new sets of tyres. Starting 14th tomorrow means the race will be more challenging but we’ll still do our best to recover something.”
#AustrianGP Quali debrief ⬇️
“The car felt really good and probably the best it’s felt all season and it’s frustrating not to have the opportunity to reach Q3 with two new sets of tyres.” – @alo_oficial⏩ https://t.co/9asMI1arDh pic.twitter.com/eEtcinRHGc
— Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) July 3, 2021
Max Verstappen, 1st, 1:03.720
“Q1 and Q2 were very good and comfortable but I was not entirely happy in Q3 as my laps weren’t amazing. I’m of course happy to be on pole, especially at the Red Bull Ring again, and having three poles in a row is great for the team. But I cannot be entirely happy as I always want to be perfect and I always want to analyse what went well and what went wrong. Maybe that is how I grew up but I also believe that is how you keep improving.
“Now I’m just looking forward to tomorrow as we have a good race car and of course with Checo being third as well it is great for the team and hopefully we can push together and score a lot of points. It was also an amazing lap by Lando and they have been quite close this weekend but I don’t expect them to be our main rivals in the race tomorrow.
“I’m very pleased with the whole package, the car and engine together have been working so well over the last few races, so we have good confidence for tomorrow but for sure it’s never easy and it’s softer compounds compared to last week so it will be tough to manage those in the race and we still have strong competition. It was also amazing to see the orange army back in the grandstands. It has been a long time and they are so happy to be here cheering us on which I love to see.”
Sergio Perez, 3rd, 1:03,990
“I’m happy, it’s a very good result for the team here at our home track in Austria. Max and I are in a good starting position and hopefully we can get a good start off the line tomorrow, that will be critical. Overall, it’s been a really hard weekend up until now, we’ve been chasing a lot of balance, exploring the car in all areas and just chipping away at it in every single run.
“I’m starting on the mediums but it’s going to be a race where one or two pit stops is unknown, no one has had enough of a long run yet so it’s hard to tell. In the end we got a good lap today and it didn’t come easy, anything can happen tomorrow and I believe we have a better race car than quali so I hope that we can bring home some solid points for the team. Congratulations to Lando too, he did a very strong lap today.”
Lando Norris, 2nd, 1:03.768
“Very happy! My best result in qualifying in Formula 1, so a big achievement for us as a team but also for myself. It was one of the best laps I’ve done. To only be half a tenth off pole is a great achievement for everyone. It makes you miss it from your early career! I don’t think we could’ve done a lot more, so P2 is awesome for us and a great position to start from tomorrow. Let’s see what we can do in the race.”
Daniel Ricciardo, 13th, 1:04.719
“Unfortunately, a similar result to last week. It did feel better, but it’s just not translating into lap time. In Q1, I was pretty happy with the laps. I felt like I’d done quite well but I was still half a second off. So, it’s a bit of a head-scratch. I don’t really know where else to get the extra speed from at the moment, so I’ll keep chipping away. We’ve got the tyre choice tomorrow, so we’ll try to make another good start like last week and keep sailing through the field.”
Lewis Hamilton, 4th, 1:04.014
“This weekend is more of a challenge than it was already last week and we continue to lack pace. We tried everything to get more out of the car but the underlying pace just isn’t good enough at the moment, so we’ve got to really find performance in the following races. I don’t know if McLaren brought an upgrade but they were mega quick today so great job from Lando. We’ve just got to try and improve, we’ve still got a long way to go. In the heat today, Red Bull seemed to step forwards and we stepped backwards so let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
Valtteri Bottas, 5th, 1:04.049
“I was hoping to fight for the pole but today it was out of reach. It seemed like we went a little bit backwards from last weekend or others gained more than us. I would say we’re missing maybe a tenth or two from where we should have been and clearly McLaren has found something with the C5 compound this weekend, it seems to work well with their car.
“I think race pace wise we should be in better shape – all the developing we’ve done with the car setup is aiming a bit more towards the race pace so we need to learn from today and then I’m sure we can get a good result for the team tomorrow. I’m still expecting a big fight with Red Bull in the race.”
Pierre Gasly, 6th, 1:04.107
“It feels like every weekend we’re qualifying in a similar position and I’m really happy with that, sixth is another strong performance for us, so today is a good day. I haven’t been as comfortable in the car this weekend for some reason, so going into quali we had a bit of an unknown, which is why I’m really pleased we managed to make it work this afternoon. We’re the first cars starting on softs tomorrow, so strategy will definitely be key in the race. We’ve shown that the car has the pace though, so I’m feeling confident.”
Yuki Tsunoda, 7th, 1:04.273
“I’m really happy with today’s performance, it’s my best qualifying so far. I want to say a big thank you to the team, who have maintained the pace from last week and managed to put it all together when it counted the most. My final lap was pretty good, even though I didn’t get a slipstream, so I’ve got to be pleased with that. It’s been really helpful for my learning to be here in Austria for two races in a row, it’s allowed me to build up my confidence and I think that shows in my performance today. Tomorrow is key, I don’t know what the conditions will be like during the race, but tyre management will be crucial to scoring points, which is what I’m aiming for.”
a career-best Qualifying from @yukitsunoda07 as he lines up P7 on the grid tomorrow 👊
hear from our Japanese youngster debrief his Quali in Austria 🇦🇹 👇 pic.twitter.com/0HfcEDrBwR
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) July 3, 2021
Sebastian Vettel, 8th, 1:04.570
“We can certainly aim for points tomorrow and I am happy with our approach to start on the soft tyres. They will not last as long as the mediums or hards, but it will be a fast tyre so let’s wait and see what we can do tomorrow. We made some small improvements across all the sessions and the car has been better balanced today. We have been competitive all weekend and it is the first time this year that both cars have been in Q3.
„If we can run in some clean air tomorrow, we will be able to show some decent race pace. It is a shame that Fernando [Alonso] had his lap impacted during Q2. All the drivers agreed yesterday to slow down on the straights between Turns Eight and Nine, which I did, but other drivers jumped the queue, then slowed down in the final corners, which is not allowed.
„That backed me up as well. It is a strange situation and something that is really difficult to avoid. I am sorry for Fernando because there is nothing he could have done.”
Lance Stroll, 10th, 1:04.618
“We can be happy with qualifying today because starting inside the top 10 gives us a good shot at points tomorrow. In hindsight, I think we could potentially have started a little bit higher up. The car felt good in Q2 and the laps came together nicely, but it was a little bit more tricky to put clean laps together during Q3.
„We could see today that teams were considering both the Soft and Medium tyres in qualifying, so the compounds could be quite close to each other. That is something for us to go away and think about for tomorrow because strategy could be more important with the softer tyre compounds this time out. We will go do our homework and come back tomorrow to fight for points.”
George Russell, 9th, 1:04.591
“Qualifying was pretty special; we usually do well on Saturdays but that was on another level. I had a lot of confidence in the car, which really helped when it came to nailing my Q3 lap with only one shot. P9 in any circumstances is a great place to be, but starting on the mediums with a few cars ahead on the soft tyres puts us in a strong position for the race and hopefully gives us a real advantage when it comes to making strategy decisions.
„I’m really pleased for the whole team; we’ve managed to keep the momentum going and this is thoroughly deserved after the struggles of last Sunday. I’m very excited for tomorrow.”
Nicholas Latifi, 18th, 1:05.195
“It was a different challenge this weekend for everybody with softer tyres, but I am struggling to get the balance right this weekend and the car dialled in. The first run wasn’t so bad, but the second run I made a mistake in the hairpin of turn three and missed the corner. I got it wrong this time and lost so much time as a result, so obviously very frustrated.”
Kimi Raikkonen, 16th, 1:05.009
“I had a good feeling and the car felt quite good in the first run, but when it came to the second set, I just had no front end in the first two corners. I don’t know what caused it as our lap preparation had been as good as always, but I ended up a couple of tenths down after the first corners and that was my lap pretty much done. I managed to catch up a little in the rest of the lap but the damage was done. We had a good recovery in the race here last week, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
Antonio Giovinazzi, 15th, 1:05.083
“After such a strong weekend so far, to be 15th is disappointing. I really struggled at the beginning of our push laps, so we need to understand better what happened. We feel we had the pace to go to Q3, but we couldn’t put it together. We’ll see what we can get out of the race, our long run pace was good and we were strong last week on the compounds we will use tomorrow, so we can fight our way to the top 10.”
Guenther believes the gap has been closed as we head into the second race at the Red Bull Ring tomorrow.#HaasF1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/WxXl8EoBYu
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) July 3, 2021
Mick Schumacher, 19th, 1:05.427
“It was better than last week, that’s for sure. We were closer to the cars ahead of us, which is always a positive. We knew our qualifying performance might lack a bit but still, I think I managed to extract the most out of the car, so I’m quite happy about that.”
Nikita Mazepin, 20th, 1:05.951
“It was quite clean. I’m happy with my improvement with every chance I had on the tyres, but I didn’t feel comfortable in the car. The rear part of the car was stepping out and snapping mid-corner in those high-speed corners. I was on the edge let’s say.”