Max Verstappen resisted his teammate Sergio Perez on the opening lap to take victory in the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring. Carlos Sainz finished in third for Ferrari.
The Red Bull drivers appeared to push each other off-track, which allowed Nico Hulkenberg to play an early starring role for Haas before he had to complete a late charge on slicks as his starting intermediates faded.
At the start of this wet condition sprint event, Perez made a slightly better getaway compared to polesitter Verstappen and then shot to the inside alongside the pitwall as the pair raced to Turn 1.
Perez forced his way ahead of Verstappen and then cut him off so forcefully on the run up the hill through the Turn 2 kink Verstappen briefly had to put his right-side wheels on the grass.
Then at Turn 3, Verstappen sent his car back up Perez’s inside from a long way back and the Checo had to take to the run-off, from where he rejoined behind Verstappen.
Their tangle held up Lando Norris, who fell from third into the final places in the top ten, while Hulkenberg got such a good run he was able to benefit when the Red Bulls fought again in Turn 4.
Perez was again on the outside and lost momentum as Verstappen saw him off, with Hulkenberg getting such a better run out of the long downhill right-hander and through Turn 5 he was able to surge ahead on the next downhill corner, the fast left of Turn 6.
That left Verstappen clear to ease ahead, taking chunks of time from Hulkenberg over the opening phase of the 24-lap sprint race.
Hulkenberg initially kept Perez at bay, with Sainz following the second Red Bull closely as the pack behind fell away, but by half distance and with Verstappen nearly ten seconds clear Perez was able to mount an attack.
Perez retook second on lap 12 with a better exit compared to Hulkenberg coming out of Turn 4, with Sainz also getting the Haas the next lap with a better exit from Turn 3 as Hulkenberg began to struggle for tyre life left on his intermediates.
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton had made good progress from their sprint shootout qualifying to run just outside the top 10 when Russell became the first driver to switch to slicks on lap 15.
His pace on the softs encouraged nine others to switch to slicks, although not the Red Bulls or Sainz, who ran untroubled to the finish in their established order to the finish, with Verstappen winning by 21 seconds over Perez.
Sainz was a further two seconds adrift by the finish, while behind the similarly inters-shod Aston Martins battled to the finish, with Lance Stroll holding off Fernando Alonso in fourth and fifth.
Hulkenberg ended up as the top slicks finisher as Haas opted to pit him for mediums on lap 17 having spotted Russell flying on the softs in the pack behind.
He had to make a last-lap pass on Esteban Ocon at Turn 1, but Hulkenberg was able to recover back to sixth by the finish.
Russell nearly got Ocon too having shot up the order with his early decision to change tyres paying off, finishing in a near dead-heat with the Alpine as they flashed down the start-finish line.
Norris took ninth ahead of Hamilton, the McLaren driver having engaged in an early race battle with Ocon and Charles Leclerc, who ended up P12 after a late battle with Alex Albon and Oscar Piastri, who were all passed by Hamilton during the second Mercedes driver’s charge on slicks after he had come in two laps after Russell.
So a frantic sprint race at the Red Bull Ring and yet the winner is the current world champion Max Verstappen. Can the Red Bull driver score maximum points in Sunday’s race? Judging by the speed and aggressiveness when racing, it seems Max is looking very strong in the Austrian Grand Prix.
Austrian Grand Prix, sprint race results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 30:26.730
2 Sergio Perez Red Bull +21.048s
3 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +23.088s
4 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +29.703s
5 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +30.109s
6 Nico Hulkenberg Haas +31.297s
7 Esteban Ocon Alpine +36.602s
8 George Russell Mercedes +36.611s
9 Lando Norris McLaren +38.608s
10 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +46.375s
11 Oscar Piastri McLaren +49.807s
12 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +50.789s
13 Alex Albon Williams +52.848s
14 Kevin Magnussen Haas +56.593s
15 Pierre Gasly Alpine +57.652s
16 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +64.822s
17 Nyck de Vries AlphaTauri +65.617s
18 Logan Sargeant Williams +66.059s
19 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo +70.825s
20 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo +76.435s
Austrian Grand Prix sprint race review as reported by Formula1.com.
Max Verstappen emerged victorious in an action-packed Sprint race at the Austrian Grand Prix, surviving some drama during the early stages of a wet to dry outing to claim an ultimately dominant victory on Red Bull’s home soil.
Verstappen lost the lead to team mate Sergio Perez at the start but quickly fought back and settled into a rhythm up front, cruising away from the competition to cross the line comfortably clear of the Mexican and Ferrari rival Carlos Sainz.
Verstappen, Perez, Sainz and a handful of other front-runners stayed on intermediate tyres for the full 24-lap encounter, holding enough of a margin over a host of other drivers to moved to slicks late on but could not make up the ground they had lost.
With a revised Sprint format in place for the 2023 season, the new ‘Shootout’ qualifying session set the grid for a 24-lap dash, which offered up the incentive of some extra points – from eight for P1 to one for P8 – for the 20 drivers in action.
A change to the starting order saw Charles Leclerc demoted from sixth to ninth – promoting Aston Martin pair Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon – after the Ferrari driver was found guilty of impeding McLaren rookie Oscar Piastri in SQ1.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.verstappen-battles-back-against-perez-for-victory-during-frenetic-wet-dry.HB0YWPEmcBxTYbbFhDkEp.html
Sergio Perez reckons he lost sight of Red Bull Formula 1 team-mate Max Verstappen to trigger their near-miss in the wet sprint race for the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix.
Saturday polesitter Verstappen complained of wheelspin off the line in the slippery conditions. This delay allowed Perez to dive up the inside into the Turn 1 right-hander.
But Perez’s tight line on entry forced him wide over the painted exit kerbs, which meant he lost traction and then appeared to drift back across the circuit to the inside.
That delay under acceleration allowed Verstappen to reel in his team-mate but as Perez moved more towards the right, the Dutch driver briefly clipped the grass to avoid contact.
Perez reckoned that, owing to the spray, he had not seen his team-mate in this moment.
Verstappen’s initial reaction over team radio was: “He pushed me off. What the f**k”.
At the end of the 24-lap race, he added: “The exit of Turn 1 was not really nice. That could have been a really big shunt. We need to have a chat about that. It was not OK.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/perez-didnt-see-verstappen-in-near-miss-in-austria-f1-sprint/10490150/
Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg says he knew there was little chance of scoring a maiden Formula 1 podium despite hitting second place in the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix sprint.
Hulkenberg holds the record for the most F1 starts (189) without a top-three finish.
Extending his run of strong one-lap performances this season, he qualified fourth for the Red Bull Ring sprint race and then gained a position through Turn 3 when third-starting Lando Norris suffered a loss of traction to trigger anti-stall aboard his McLaren MCL60.
Meanwhile, a slow-launching Max Verstappen had dropped to second place and then struggled to stop the car into the right-hander. This forced both Red Bulls to run wide.
Their lack of momentum out of the corner enabled Hulkenberg to close before the 35-year-old passed Sergio Perez around the outside to take second, which he held until on lap 12.
However, the drying conditions wore his intermediate tyres and Hulkenberg continued to drop before pitting for a set of medium tyres. He eventually finished the race in sixth.
But Hulkenberg reckoned it was inevitable that he would drop back. He said: “I knew that at one point, I’m going to get more heat from behind.
“It wasn’t raining. The track was drying up. Probably I can feel it earlier than what you can see on the TV, which direction it’s going. I knew it was going to be a tough one to keep there.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hulkenberg-knew-he-had-no-chance-of-f1-podium-in-austrian-gp-sprint-race/10490225/
McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris has explained how he “lost everything” to fall from third place on the opening lap of the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix sprint race.
Unlike team-mate Oscar Piastri, Norris has benefitted this weekend from the major upgrades brought to the MCL60 for the Red Bull Ring. His car was fitted with a new floor and sidepod design.
He used the revised machine to snare fourth in the Friday qualifying session to determine the grid for the full grand prix and then went one better in the Saturday shootout to land third for the 24-lap sprint bout.
However, Norris lasted only three corners before dropping down on his way to an eventual ninth place.
It appeared as though the McLaren might have been caught up in the frenetic early battle between Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
But Norris clarified that he had avoided contact and instead had triggered anti-stall at Turn 3 and that “cost me everything”.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Norris explained: “I just got a bit sideways and just went into anti-stall and I was revving in Turn 3. So that cost me everything. I don’t know why it happened.
“My Turn 3 was OK, I think. It was obviously quite close, but I just went into anti-stall, so I lost everything.
“I was basically in neutral [revving], watching everyone drive past.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/how-norris-lost-everything-in-austrian-gp-f1-sprint-race/10490191/