2023-06-30 16:18:46
Although Max Verstappen of the landlord team Red Bull won the Austrian GP Friday qualifying race, which determines the starting position of Sunday’s final, Charles Leclerc, the champion of last year’s competition, won the second place with a time lag of 0.048 seconds, repeating last year’s rivalry.
Free practice: Verstappen is field leader despite polarizing adjustments
Affected by the implementation of the sprint competition system this week, the free practice for teams and drivers to adjust is only implemented on Friday followingnoon on track time for 60 minutes; compared with the middle and rear teams, soft tires and medium tires are the main adjustment tires , Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari used hard tires for most of the time, and the soft tires and medium tires were not released until the last 10 minutes.
In the last 10 minutes of the field, although Sainz took the lead in writing a lap of 1:05 seconds, Verstappen not only broke Sainz’s record in the last round of sprints, but also did not use soft tires, showing the momentum that the pole position is inevitable.
Qualifying
Q1: This season’s total gap is the smallest. Kakuda Yuki and Zhou Guanyu have a slight gap
Scheduled to be held at 17:00 on track time on Friday, the qualifying race will be divided into three sessions to determine the starting position of the Sunday final. Q1 will eliminate the last 5 drivers in 18 minutes, and will be arranged to the 16th-20th starting position in the final.
At the start of the race, the Red Bull Circuit was in a slightly cloudy and hot environment with a temperature of 28 degrees Celsius and a part of the track with a temperature of 44 degrees Celsius. As the weather may change at any time, most of the drivers on the field entered the field immediately following the track opened. The warm-up lap was started by Magnussen and Hulkenberg with a score of 1:06.0.
Afterwards, although Verstappen took over the game for a time, and there was a considerable gap, but when most drivers in the field were regarding to break their own lap records, Bottas made a mistake at the exit of Turn 1 and was unable to move until the red flag was shown in the race. It was hard to get out of trouble, and at the same time, the race will review the driving routes of all drivers one by one, making Piastri the temporarily leading driver when the race restarts.
Although Verstappen was also one of the drivers whose results were cancelled, he quickly responded with a faster result than before, and dominated Q1 with a slight gap. The track characteristics made this week’s qualifying the total gap so far this season In the smallest battle, Kadota Yuki lost to Bottas by 0.021 seconds and became the top loser. Zhou Guanyu also lost his hatred by 0.055 seconds. The gap between Sargeant, Magnussen and De Vries is relatively large.
Q2: Perez, Russell and Ocon are all on the list of promotions on the left and right sides of the track.
The next Q2 lasted for 15 minutes, and continued to eliminate the last 5 drivers to determine the 11th-15th starting order in the final.
Although the two Red Bull drivers who took the lead put pressure on their opponents for a while, the results of the two drivers were canceled due to crossing the line, so that Norris, whose car has been greatly updated, took the lead temporarily at 1:05.038, which was not inferior to the two Red Bull drivers. , but Verstappen responded as quickly as Q1 and returned to the leading position once more with 1:04.951.
In the last 5 minutes of the field, the gap between the top ten was only 0.46 seconds, and Perez’s lap time was canceled due to crossing the line once more, making the situation even more strange. Afterwards, although Perez also handed over 1 minute and 04 seconds However, his result was canceled for the third time due to the sideline of the track, making Albon, who was originally ranked first, the last driver to advance.
In addition to Perez, Ocon and Russell were also eliminated due to the same problem, while Piastri and Bottas stopped because their performance was not as good as their opponents and they were far behind.
Q3: Verstappen and Leclerc will face each other in the front row on Sunday
The final Q3 lasted for 12 minutes, and decided the arrangement of the pole position starting riders and the top 10 starting positions in the final of the competition.
Although Albon started the race with a time of 1:05.823, Verstappen quickly raised the pole position standard to the fastest 1:04.503 this week. Although Leclerc and Sainz also raised their scores to 1:04. , but there is still a gap with Verstappen’s results; Hamilton, the only one who took advantage of the gap in the track, delivered the fastest result in the first time period, but was at a disadvantage in the second and third time periods.
Verstappen tried to lay a better foundation for the pole position with a higher time of 1:04.391 on the last lap. Although other drivers attacked with all their strength in the last lap, and Leclerc was the biggest threat, Verstappen still grabbed the pole with a difference of 0.048 seconds A bit, so that Sunday’s final will reproduce last year’s matchup.
Sainz ranked third with a difference of 0.190 seconds. Norris, who performed well on this track, finished fourth with the blessing of the updated kit. The fifth to tenth places were Hamilton, Stroll, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Gasly and Albon.
After qualifying, the teams will spend one night preparing for the Saturday sprint day that may be affected by the weather. Qualifying will be held at 18:00 on July 1, Taiwan time. The 24-lap sprint will start on 22 :30.
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