A super Spielberg Saturday for Norris

Lando Norris secured pole position, the twelfth of his career, for the Austrian Grand Prix. The McLaren driver had already been fastest yesterday and in today’s third free practice session and was the only one to get under the 1’04” barrier (1’03”971). The gap to second place was the biggest we have seen all season, both in terms of actual time (0.521) but above all as a percentage (0.814%). It’s the British team’s 171^st pole position, its fifth in the Austrian Grand Prix, the last one dating back to 2000, courtesy of Mika Hakkinen.

The qualifying results, at least for the first two rows, are identical to those of the recent Monaco Grand Prix: Charles Leclerc's Ferrari is in second place (1'04‘492), while third and fourth places are occupied by his teammates, with Oscar Piastri (1'04’554) ahead of Lewis Hamilton (1'04"582).

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented to Norris by Christopher Valka, the lucky winner of the “Ö3 Superfan” competition organised by Austrian radio station Hitradio Ö3.  The winner was able to get special access and a behind the scenes look at the Austrian Grand Prix.

THE DAY ON TRACK 

In the third free practice session the Soft was the most used compound by a long way. Only seven drivers added any variety to the tyre usage colour chart: Verstappen ran a set of Hards while the Alpine, Racing Bulls and Aston Martin pairs used a set of Mediums, with Alonso and Stroll also doing their usual scrubbing-in lap on the Hard.

As for qualifying, there were no exceptions, with everyone running just the Soft. As track temperature came close to 50 °C, the C5 proved to offer a good level of performance even on a second run, whether from drivers doing the second one in the same run or from those who pitted in between runs.

MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT

“On what is such a short track in terms of lap time, one usually sees very small gaps separating the cars and that was the case in Q1, with all 20 drivers covered by less than one second. That only serves to make Lando’s final Q3 lap all the more impressive. Tomorrow, we can expect a closely contested race, even if McLaren clearly start as favourites. As for strategy, we believe that a two-stop is the quickest choice, running the Medium and Hard. A one-stop is doable, given that tyre degradation is quite low, in fact probably even lower than expected, but on paper it is still significantly slower, by around seven seconds. On top of that, overtaking is definitely possible at this track as there are three DRS zones.

“It’s worth nothing that drivers from three teams – Aston Martin, Racing Bulls and Alpine - will have a set of Hard and one of Medium available, while the Haas pair will have two of Hard and one of Medium.”

FORMULA 2

Josep Maria Martì (Campos Racing) took his second F2 win in today’s Sprint Race. The Spaniard started from fifth on the grid and got a great start, after which he overtook Joshua Duerksen to take the lead. The AIX Racing driver finished second, the position from which he had started, while Roman Stanek (Invicta Racing) rounded off the podium places.

FORMULA 3

James Wharton delivered an impeccable performance to take a hard fought win in Spielberg, his maiden victory in the FIA Formula 3 series. The ART Grand Prix rookie fended off the advances of Alessandro Giusti all race long, the MP Motorsport driver having to settle for second. Ugo Ugochukwu (PREMA Racing) was third, to record his first podium finish in this category.