2023-07-01 12:36:00
The Mexican is 69 points behind the 195 with which the Dutchman leads in the championship.
the dutch Max Verstappen (Red Bull)outstanding leader of the championship, will start first this Saturday in the sprint test of the Austrian Grand Prixthe ninth of Formula One World Cupwhich is disputed in the Spielberg’s Red Bull Ring (Styria); circuit in which he will share the front row with his partner, the Mexican Sergio Perez and in which the Spanish Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) y Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) they will start fifth and seventh, respectively.
Verstappen -who had signed the ‘pole’ for this Sunday’s race on Friday- dominated the reduced qualifying (‘sprint shoot-out’) of the second of the six Grand Prix of the season that are held in sprint format; and he will face the short test -24 laps, over a third of the Sunday route- from the first row, next to ‘Checo’: second in the World Championship, 69 points out of the 195 with which the Dutchman leads.
The insatiable ‘Mad Max’ set the best time in the decisive third round, covering the 4,318 meters of the Styrian track on a soft compound tire in one minute, four seconds and 440 thousandths. 493 less than ‘Czech’. So the two Red Bulls will start this followingnoon from the front row, ahead of the Englishman Lando Norris (McLaren) and the German Nico Hülkenberg (Haas), who will do so from the second.
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Sainz He will start from third, alongside his teammate, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, and the double world champion from Asturias -who, with six podiums in the first eight races, is third in the World Championship, 78 points behind Verstappen- will start with his , Canadian Lance Stroll, from the fourth row of the sprint grid.
The English seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and the Finnish Valtteri Bottas -now at Alfa Romeo-, who in the glorious days of Mercedes they signed a good handful of ‘doublets’ for the Brackley team, they fell in the first round of the ‘sprint shoot-out’, a reduced qualification, also with three episodes (Q1, Q2 and Q3), but of shorter duration -12, 10 and 8 minutes – than those of the main timed session, the one on Friday, which had ordered the starting formation for this Sunday’s race.
Sainz started it with problems, as smoke was coming out of the back of his car (presumably from the brakes), but the talented driver from Madrid only needed the last lap of the act to set the best time of the round, ahead of Verstappen.
Your partner Leclerc -investigated for having allegedly annoyed the Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren)-He was saved by a thousandth from being eliminated at the first exchange, and ‘Czech‘ He passed fourteenth in the second round of reduced qualifying, which started with a wet track, due to the rain that had fallen earlier, before gradually drying up. On the fifth shortest track in the World Championship, with one of the fastest laps of the same.
The other Mercedes, the English one George Russell, he fell in the second round, in which the Frenchman was also eliminated Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and in which, exchanging positions with respect to the previous one, the World Championship leader set the best time, ahead of Sainz.
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In the decisive round, reserved for the best ten, Verstappen He did not give an option and ‘Czech‘ -who will start fifteenth on Sunday- amended his performance on Friday, in which, following three laps were annulled, he was eliminated in Q2 of the main time trial.
The rather unusual second row will be occupied by Norris and Hülkenberg and Sainz, who will start third this Sunday, will face the sprint from fifth place.
Alonso will start from seventh place, the same one he will occupy this Sunday, in the long race: scheduled for 71 laps, to complete 306 and a half kilometers. The great Asturian pilot, in a second youth four weeks following turning 42, will seek to add once more in the sprint, which awards points to the first eight. The winner will add eight; the second, seven; and the third, six. So, successively, until the eighth: that he will add one to his square.
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