Lando Norris produced the perfect response to his galling crash late in the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago by dominating qualifying in Austria. He secured a comfortable pole position in Spielberg while Max Verstappen had his attempt scuppered by a late yellow flag which ruined his final flying lap.
McLaren were the pace-setters throughout practice but Verstappen was always close behind on a track he loves. He came into this qualifying session on the back of five pole positions in a row at the Red Bull Ring, a run stretching back to the 2021 season.
But it would come to an end as a Pierre Gasly spin as the final runs of qualifying began ruined the laps of those behind him. Verstappen was one of those unfortunate drivers powerless to improve and so he was only seventh quickest.
Norris was more than half-a-second clear of Charles Leclerc in second place, comfortably the largest pole margin of the season so far – on the track with the shortest lap time in F1. And he will like that the Ferrari will start between him and title rival Oscar Piastri who had to settle for third on the grid ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
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George Russell came into qualifying on the back of pole and victory last time out in Montreal, but was staring down the barrel of a potential Q1 exit until his final lap with which he managed to leap out of the bottom five. But he was only 11th fastest with team-mate Kimi Antonelli 10th, sparking worries down at Mercedes that Q3 might have been beyond them.
Even though Russell made it through, there were still some eye-catching eliminations. In the bottom five was Yuki Tsunoda, a Red Bull suffering a nightmare Q1 exit at their home race, while Carlos Sainz failed to make it into the top 15 for the third qualifying session in a row as his struggle to find one-lap pace in his Williams continues.
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Nico Hulkenberg was at the very bottom of the timesheet, unable to extract the performance from his Sauber that rookie team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto found to go eighth quickest in that first part of the session. Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll were the others who failed to make it into Q2.
Alex Albon was the only man left flying the flag for Williams but he too couldn't make the top 10, suffering a Q2 exit alongside Fernando Alonso who was 11th and that too was the end of Aston Martin's participation. Isack Hadjar had shown the pace for another top 10 appearance but couldn't put the lap together and Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman were the others in the bottom five.
Bortoleto continued his fine display by going fifth quickest in Q2 to reach the top 10 for the first time in his short F1 career to date. And Liam Lawson also did well to get there to ensure that, across their two teams, Red Bull did have at least a couple of affiliated drivers representing them in the final part of qualifying.
Antonelli was only 10th quickest but it was enough to squeeze both Mercedes cars into Q3 to allay what Toto Wolff might have feared would happen in that second part of the session. But the first of their two runs in that final part of qualifying made it clear that neither Russell nor Antonelli had the pace to challenge for pole.
In the end, no-one could match what Norris was able to produce. Verstappen and Piastri might have fancied their chances but never got the opportunity to give it a go as Gasly's spin at the final corner brought out the yellow flags which disabled DRS in that sector and meant they were never going to match Norris' pace on their final runs.
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