SPIELBERG: Lando Norris bounced back from his collision in Canada to put McLaren on pole position for the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday while championship-leading teammate Oscar Piastri qualified third.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc joined Norris on the front row with teammate Lewis Hamilton fourth, raising the Italian team’s hopes after a difficult weekend so far.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen qualified only seventh at his team’s home circuit after pulling out of his final flying effort when Alpine’s Pierre Gasly spun at the last corner and briefly brought out yellow flags.
Piastri was also forced to bale but had been slower than Norris in both of the first two phases.
Norris, who needs a strong result after a collision with Piastri in Canada two weeks ago, is 22 points behind the Australian in the championship after 10 of 24 races.
“I did what I planned to do and when I plan to do something and it goes right, it normally goes very, very well,” said Norris.
“A good day and it has been a good weekend for me so far, so hopefully we can keep it up.”
The pole was his third of the season and he won both of the previous two with fastest lap in Australia and Monaco.
RED FLAG
George Russell, last year’s race winner, qualified fifth for Mercedes but faced an investigation for a potential unsafe release in the pitlane.
Liam Lawson will line up sixth for Racing Bulls, ahead of Verstappen, with Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto making it into the final phase for the first time and qualifying eighth for Sauber.
Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli was ninth fastest for Mercedes and Gasly completed the top 10.
The second phase of qualifying was red-flagged when the trackside grass at turn 10 caught fire, the latest of a series of such incidents.
The governing FIA said the fire was caused by a car going off track, rather than by sparks from the titanium skid blocks, and carried out additional dampening of the grass before the final top 10 shootout.
Verstappen’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda and Williams’ Carlos Sainz made early exits, neither getting through the opening phase.
“There’s damage in the car, for sure. The car is undriveable ... it’s pulling under braking, no load in high speed,” said Sainz, who qualified 19th with only Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg behind.
He explained later that the team had put new brakes on the car for qualifying, as usual, but it started pulling to one side immediately. (Writing by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Ed Osmond and Andrew Cawthorne)
