2023-06-30 16:22:00
Track limits cause trouble
In front of thousands of Dutch fans, Max Verstappen took pole position at the Austrian Grand Prix. His teammate Sergio Perez was unlucky and only started from 15th place. The track limits caused trouble.
Not across the board, but at least sporadically there was orange fog following qualifying in Spielberg. The grandstands were already colored in the fashion color of Formula 1, as tens of thousands of Verstappen fans made the pilgrimage to the ring during qualifying to honor their hero. And as it should be, the two-time champion did not disappoint. In a qualifying session full of penalties, the 25-year-old put his RB19 on pole position and therefore has the best chance of gifting the fans from his home country with his 42nd Grand Prix victory and the fourth in a row here on Sunday.
However, it won’t be a sure-fire success – because just one year following the last victory, also here at the Red Bull Ring, Ferrari seems ready for a comeback. Those three tenths that they wanted to have found in the wind tunnel seem to have actually been put on the track. The gap is smaller, as evidenced by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s second and third places. And, as I said: in Spielberg, the Leclerc/Ferrari combo celebrated their last win a year ago.
There were many surprises, the most positive being Lando Norris. The Brit starts fourth on Sunday with his McLaren sensational from the second row of the grid, so the updates are working perfectly. Fernando Alonso (7th) was among the negative surprises. George Russell (11th) and Verstappen teammate Sergio Perez (15th), who did not make it into the final qualifying session in the superior Red Bull for the fourth time in a row. That will not reduce the pressure on him. How much the load is on his shoulders was shown immediately following the retirement in Q2, when his race engineer informed him that the third and final attempt at a fast lap was also canceled – as in the two previous ones, he was too wide in turn 10 the curve and so had no time. “What a damn joke regarding the route limit!” the Mexican rumbled with a few “censorship beeps”.
The 33-year-old was not alone in his anger. In general, race director Niels Wittich’s strict interpretation of the rules met with little approval. “It looked strange. Although it was often close, an extremely large number of laps were skipped. Now you might say you just have to drive differently. But you can take my car and try it, but then you don’t have the speed and time,” said Verstappen to the penalty farce and added: “It was really difficult and it’s not like we’re all idiots. We should think regarding something on such routes, maybe wider boundary strips.”
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