Join Jonny Reynolds for a quick-fire run through all of the big F1 headlines from Saturday in Austria, including recaps of the sprint race and grand prix qualifying.
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The Athletic. Hello there and welcome along to the Race F1 Briefing for Saturday 29th June 2024. I'm Johnny Reynolds and on today's episode I'll be bringing you up to speed on an extremely busy day in Austria which included a sprint race and qualifying for Sunday's Grand Prix. So let's start as the teams and drivers did with that 23 lap sprint race. And the headline news was McLaren missing another chance to deny Max Verstapp and a Formula 1 race win as its drivers ended up battling among themselves in the Austrian Grand Prix sprint. After pole-sit of Verstapp and made an initial early break, McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piaestri reeled the Red Bull in once DRS was usable, with Norris making a series of overtaking attempts. He succeeded with the bold dive into the turn 3 hairpin at the start of lap 5. But though Norris's pass on Verstapp and was a fine one, he didn't do enough to close the door on a retaliatory Verstapp and move into the following turn 4 downhill right hander. As Verstapp and swept back into the lead, running slightly wide with the lock up as he did so, Piaestri got alongside Norris and went around the outside at the fast turn 6 to claim second. Now Piaestri couldn't keep up with Verstapp and thereafter, but he did manage to keep teammate Norris at bay as they fell 5 seconds away from the leader. Carlos Sainz got his Ferrari up to 4th at the start, but Mercedes-George Russell reclaimed the place from him at 1/3 distance and then fended off Sainz and the second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton from there. Sainz's team make Charles a clammy while quickly turned his frustrating tent on the grid into 7th place, but didn't progress any further, while still finishing comfortably clear of an underwhelming Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull in 8th. And finally, the Alpeins of Esteban Ocon and Pia Ghazli fell back from their top 10 qualifying positions to 11th and 12th, buying Kevin Magnasen's has and Lance Strolls Aston Martin. So with another sprint win, Max Verstapp and stretches his lead over Lando Norris in the driver standings by a further two points to 71. But that will feel like small potatoes to Lando, who was kicking himself after the sprint for the fact that he "left the door open like an amateur" in his battle for the lead with Verstappan. Although Norris may not have believed McLaren had the pace of a victory on Saturday, that miscalculation in the heat of battle denied him the chance to find out if it really was winnable. He had the move done, and it was brilliantly executed. What's more, this every chance he could have stayed at the front had he not given him a Verstappan of all people space. Instead, he had to settle for 3rd place. As Ed Stroll reports on the race website, Norris' self-criticism is a strength and it's encouraging that he immediately realised he'd made a rookie error. And speaking in the post-print press conference, he addressed what more he needs to get out of himself to beat Verstappan on a more regular basis. He said, "I know I've done things that aren't good enough and things that aren't at the level they need to be and I'm going to do my best to improve on them." The good news for Norris is he learns fast, and he has the chance to put that learning into practice in Sunday's Grand Prix. The race, F1 briefing. On to qualifying now for the main event of the weekend, Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix. And it was a familiar story, as Max Verstappan absolutely flattened his opposition, securing pole position by more than four tenths of a second. Once again it was McLaren's Lando Norris leading the charge against the Dutchman, but he had to settle for second, just as he had in spring qualifying a day earlier. Verstappan said after the session that every run was on point, and he wasn't joking. All four of his runs on new soft tyres across Q2 and Q3 would have been good enough for pole, as would his spring qualifying time. And his eventual best of 1 minute 0-4.314 left him 0.404 seconds clear of Norris, and more than half a second up on the third best car. And speaking of the third best car, that should have been Norris's teammate Oscar Piaestri, but he had his final Q3 attempt scrubbed off for what appeared from his on board to be a marginal track limits transgression at turn six. Piaestri declared that, as embarrassing for F1. Third instead went to Mercedes driver George Russell, who shaded Ferrari's colour science by 0.011 seconds on his final lap. And Louis Hamilton was fifth in the second Mercedes, ahead of Charles Leclerc, who had a scruffy end to his session, and the top ten was completed by Piaestri, Sergio Perez, Nico Holkenberg and Esteban Ocomme. And he's absolutely finest on the 60 seconds, and last lap, George Russell into the wall and out of the race. Nothing else comes close at the home of Formula One night racing. Carlos signs, tactical brilliance, Carlos signs, the winner of the Singapore Grand Prix. Watch it live, Formula One Singapore airline Singapore Grand Prix, 20th to 22nd September. Now at Singapore GP dot SG. Two off track matters now and an update on the driver market because Scott Mitchell Malm on the ground in Austria for the race reports that Carlos signs his decision on which Formula One team to join for 2025 has been delayed because Alpene has told him it could become a Mercedes engine customer. Sciences the bottleneck in a series of final F1 driver market moves with Alpene rejoining Williams and Salva / Audi in vying for his services, and other drivers including Valterrey Bottas and Esteban Ocomme impacted by which seat gets taken as well. Sciences Choice had essentially boiled down to Audi or Williams, but there have been dialogue with Alpene for months that remained open, and the Renault own team recently re-emerged as a serious candidate. The situation changed after Renault recruited Flavio Breatori as executive advisor earlier this month and started to weigh up whether to abandon its works engine programme. While Alpene is proceeding with development of his 2026 engine for now, consideration has been given to switching to being a customer team instead, with Mercedes earmarked as the potential supplier. This is understood to have been recently communicated to science, whereas previously the allure of being a works team was central to Alpene's pitch. Of course, science would have hoped to have made a decision on his future by now, as the drawn-out saga that is leaving other teams and drivers hanging is not good for him either. As we reported on Thursday, science indicated that he'd make a decision after the British Grand Prix next Sunday, but the issue with that is that he's unlikely to know exactly what Alpene has to offer him for 2026 by then, and if he wants to still be able to choose Williams or Audi instead, his decision needs to be made sooner rather than later. From that, just about wraps things up for this episode, I'll be back tomorrow with a quick-fire recap of the Austrian Grand Prix, which takes place over 71 laps of the Red Bull Ring circuit. Will we have another closely fought fight for victory as we did in the sprint race, or will Max Verstappen waltz away into the sunset, leaving the rest to fight over second place? We've had some absolutely fantastic races recently, and I'm sure you, like me, hope we get another. Until tomorrow, goodbye! As you've probably heard by now, we've teamed up with BedMGM this season. 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