Max qualifies fifth in Austria: 'Made the most of it'

Published on 30 June 2018 by Stefan Meens

Max Verstappen will line up in P5 on the starting grid for the Austrian Grand Prix after qualifying in fifth. Valtteri Bottas took his first pole position of the season, ahead of Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton. The Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen qualified in third and fourth. Romain Grosjean surprised with P6, splitting the two Aston Martin Red Bull Racing cars.

“My lap wasn’t that great. We still managed fifth, but the balance wasn’t great”, explained Max after qualifying. “Q1 and Q2 felt fairly good, but in Q3 I had oversteer in turn 6 on the first set of tyres. I probably lost two tenths. On the next set, without any changes, we had oversteer again. After that we put on more wing but we still had oversteer. I just did not get a good feel with the tyres, which is a shame. In the end, I got the max out of it with fifth.”

By starting on the super-softs, Max is on a different strategy than the Ferraris, who opt for the ultra-soft Pirellis. “I think it works for us. Hopefully we have a good start on our super-softs. I think the cars ahead of us are a bit too fast and we have a Haas behind us that’s fairly quick. So we’ll see.”

Max ends by saying he is delighted with the fan support at the Red Bull Ring. “It’s amazing to see. In the free practice sessions I saw a lot of orange in the stands and tomorrow it’s going to be even more. It’s a great motivation.”

The first of three parts of qualifying does not provide any surprises. The three top teams comfortably make it through with the usual back markers, McLaren, Sauber and Williams, fighting with the Force Indias and Scuderia Toro Rossos to make it into Q2. In the end, Sergey Sirotkin (Williams), Brendan Hartley (Toro Rosso), Marcus Ericsson (Sauber), Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren) and Sergio Perez (Force India) all strand in Q1.

The drivers falling at the second hurdle are all the team mates of the ones stuck in the first part. Esteban Ocon (Force India), Pierre Gasly (Scuderia Toro Rosso), Charles Leclerc (Sauber), Fernando Alonso (McLaren) and Lance Stroll (Williams) all miss out on the top 10.

The final part of qualifying is set to be a straight fight between Ferrari and Mercedes, with Red Bull playing second fiddle. Ultimately, Mercedes dominate with Bottas taking his first pole position of the season and his second consecutive one in Austria. Hamilton settles for second with Vettel out-qualifying Raikkonen yet again. Max is best of the rest in fifth. Surprisingly, the Red Bull’s are split by Haas’ Romain Grosjean, who will start the Austrian Grand Prix from sixth on the grid.

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Results qualifying Austria: