Starting in the lead, Max Verstappen (Red Bull) easily won the second sprint race of the F1 season ahead of his teammate Sergio Pérez on Saturday in Austria before Sunday’s Grand Prix at Spielberg.
The Dutchman, double reigning world champion and already well ahead this season before the 9th round, and his Mexican runner-up were ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari) on the podium of this half-hour race.
Quebecer Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) took the thankless fourth place.
The main action of this race took place on the first lap with the battle between the two Red Bulls. Pérez first managed to overtake Verstappen in the first corner. Overwhelmed by his right in the next straight, he slightly pushed the Dutchman on the lawn. “Mad Max” answered him in the next bend by braking very late, blocking the Mexican in turn to pass him again.
“He pushed me, what the hell!?” reacted hot Verstappen in a radio communication with his engineer. By interposed message, “Checo” retorted: “What’s wrong with Max?”.
But Verstappen then escaped and finished with more than twenty seconds in advance, for this race of only 24 laps of this short circuit (4.318 km).
Dominating Red Bull
Winner twice at the start of the season, in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan (double sprint and GP), Pérez seemed to be the only one who could fight against Verstappen. But the Mexican suffers from the comparison: the Dutchman has won the other six Grands Prix and is now 71 points ahead. A hole.
This is the second time this year, after Baku, that a sprint race punctuates the Saturday before the Grand Prix on Sunday. Six sprints in total are planned for 2023, each time with bonus points in the championship for the first eight (8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1).
Nico Hulkenberg (Haas), Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and George Russell (Mercedes) finished 6th, 7th and 8th and therefore in the points. Unlike Lando Norris (McLaren), 9th, Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), 10th, or even Pierre Gasly (Alpine), 15th.
Unlike last season, the starting grid for the Sunday Grand Prix is not defined according to the results of the sprint, but rather to the qualifications on Friday.
Verstappen had won the 26th pole position of his career, the sixth this season and the fourth in a row. He will start ahead of Charles Leclerc, who had almost dethroned him by finishing 48 thousandths behind.
Leclerc and the Scuderia, in great difficulty this season, will seek a first victory for a year, obtained here on the opponent’s ground. But it is (very far) from being won: Leclerc only finished 12th in the sprint after a day to forget.
The Red Bull Ring is, as its name suggests, one of the strongholds for Verstappen, who has already won there four times (three Austrian GPs and one Styrian GP).