The Red Bull Ring is a testament to the Red Bulls! Verstappen dominated the sprint in the Austrian rain

The second sprint race of this year’s Formula 1 season fell on the Austrian Grand Prix weekend. Max Verstappen emerged victorious from the rain-affected race. After three race weekends, Pérez returned to the podium. Sainz scored his first podium of the season.

Saturday’s first surprise came in qualifying for the sprint race. Lewis Hamilton did not make it out of the first part of the race, but was deprived of his fastest time when he overstepped the track limits. He was therefore only eighteenth on the grid.

Charles Leclerc was another driver who struggled in qualifying. Unlike Hamilton, although he made it to the last part of qualifying, he fell well short of his performance yesterday and his time was only good enough for sixth place.

However, the Monegasque only started the sprint from ninth place due to a penalty for blocking Piastri during qualifying. Lando Norris and Nico Hülkenberg, on the other hand, had great performances.

The Briton demonstrated the speed of the newly improved Mclaren by setting the third fastest time of Saturday. The German in the service of Haas lined up alongside Norris for the start in fourth place.

Hülkenberg’s perfect start and Verstappen’s flawless drive

Before the start of the sprint race, the rain started to fall on the Austrian Red Bull Ring again. This left 19 drivers on the grid with intermediate tyres and Valtteri Bottas on medium dry tyres. The Finn’s gamble didn’t work and he headed to the pits immediately after the warm-up lap to change tyres.

A great start from second place allowed Pérez to attack Max Verstappen at the first corner. The battle continued until turn four, where the championship leader took the race lead for good. Pérez was forced to retire from the duel, allowing Hülkenberg an easy pass into second place.

Norris was the biggest casualty of the Red Bull duel. He had to brake on the exit of Turn 3 ahead of Verstappen, who momentarily lost control of his car and was slow on the exit. The McLaren driver dropped down to an unscored tenth place.

Hülkenberg held on to his podium position until lap 13. His Haas was no longer able to keep up with the pace of Pérez and Sainz, who quickly closed the gap to the German after passing him. Hülkenberg also dropped behind the Aston Martin drivers after his pit stop, finishing sixth.

The focus for most of the race was on the battle for the last points-paying eighth place between Ocon, Norris and Leclerc. Ocon proved to be a driver not easily overtaken and in the end was the only driver of the trio to take points from the sprint, specifically two for seventh place.

By lap eighteen the track was dry enough for dry tyres. This transition was picked up brilliantly by Mercedes. George Russell, on dry tyres, flew through the field to eighth place, crossing the line nine thousandths behind Ocon.

At the front of the field, as has become customary this season, it was quiet. Verstappen disappeared from the sight of the other drivers after a duel on the first lap, winning by 20 seconds from Pérez.

Carlos Sainz completed the podium. Behind him, Stroll crossed the line ahead of Alonso, who attacked his teammate until the last lap.

Source: F1TV