Qualifying for the Styrian Grand Prix looks set to be very close, and not just because the Red Bull Ring has the shortest lap time of the year.
While Red Bull look like the team to beat, there isn’t much in it, and there’s no shortage of variables which could influence the all-important contest for pole position.Formula 1 may have dodged the expected rain on Friday but other series sharing the same track did not. Heavy rain remains possible throughout Saturday afternoon’s running: The official weather forecast indicates a 60% chance of rain through final practice and qualifying (and the W Series race afterwards, for that matter).
Even if the skies don’t open, however, there’s plenty more that could happen.
Mercedes vs Red Bull
Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas all had lap times deleted during practice sessions for exceeding track limits, along with several of their rivals. Hamilton and Verstappen lost some of their better times from the session. In second practice, Hamilton would have been much closer to Verstappen’s time than he ended up, if he’d kept it within the limits – his disqualified time was a 1’05.335, fractionally quicker than Verstappen’s best.
So although Red Bull and Verstappen confidently topped both practice sessions, it’s too early to discount the Mercedes drivers. And as Hamilton acknowledged yesterday, Mercedes tend to perform less well in qualifying these days relative to the grand prix.
“I don’t know if we definitely have better race pace,” he said. “I think we’re very close, we’re probably stronger [in the race] than we are compared to qualifying.
“In the last race, we were losing three and a half tenths just in the straights, with engine power or drag, probably a combination of the two. And it’s tyres, it’s the fact that we lost a lot of downforce this year.”
Slipstreams and yellow flags
Since the current generation of high-drag Formula 1 cars arrived, the Red Bull Ring has been among the tracks where drivers stand to benefit significantly if they can get a tow from a rival over the course of its three long straights. A well-timed tow in Q3 could give us a surprise pole-winner.
It’s a double-edged sword, however, as you don’t want to get too close to a rival through the quick corners in the final third of the lap. During second practice, Lando Norris was caught out by a car entering the pit lane ahead of him out of turn nine, understeered wide in the wash of the car ahead, and ran beyond the track limits.
Norris was one of the most prolific violators and will have to rein it in during qualifying or risk having a vital lap struck, as happened to him in Imola. He is handy around the track, however – remember the last-lap heroics which put him on the podium at this venue last year.
We’ve seen red flags disrupt qualifying sessions on several recent occasions. More of the same is possible tomorrow, as are yellow flags, given the vast expanses of gravel waiting to trap drivers. Hamilton lost a front-row start due to this last year, picking up a three-place grid penalty; team mate Bottas has already collected the same for his bizarre pit lane spin during practice.
Disguised pace
AlphaTauri showed strong pace in first practice, then fell back in the second, but don’t overlook the potential of the AT02s.
Jonathan Eddolls, AlphaTauri’s chief race engineer, confirmed that the team moved their second practice programme forward to the first session, expecting rain. Both drivers showed such strong pace in the morning, consistently among top five drivers, Pierre Gasly Gasly finishing the session second-fastest.
However Gasly was unable to complete any running during second practice as Honda were concerned about his power unit. The team also confirmed that Yuki Tsunoda’s qualifying simulation run was compromised, so his final time didn’t reflect their true pace.
Some teams seemed to take a significant step forward from morning to afternoon; most notably, McLaren improved considerably, Daniel Ricciardo finishing second-fastest.
Other teams might have done something different; Ferrari, in particular, had poor pace in second practice, both their factory team cars finishing behind Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo in the order and both outside the top 10. Given the team’s need to try and understand their Paul Ricard performance, it seems likely we haven’t seen their real pace this weekend so far.
Equally, Alpine look very fast. Their cars were the clear best-of-the-rest after second practice but that was also true on Friday at Paul Ricard. By qualifying, they failed to get both cars into Q3 and struggled with race pace.
Whatever teams are doing, expect it to remain fairly mysterious until qualifying itself. For the very tight midfield, third practice is unlikely to feature more qualifying simulation as, unlike in Paul Ricard, many of them are unlikely to be able to chance making Q3 on medium tyres.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Combined practice times
Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | Total laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-Honda | 1’05.910 | 1’05.412 | 70 |
2 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’06.669 | 1’05.748 | 71 |
3 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine-Renault | 1’06.551 | 1’05.790 | 68 |
4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’06.332 | 1’05.796 | 65 |
5 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine-Renault | 1’06.519 | 1’05.827 | 73 |
6 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin-Mercedes | 1’06.708 | 1’05.934 | 68 |
7 | Lando Norris | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’06.861 | 1’05.994 | 73 |
8 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin-Mercedes | 1’06.584 | 1’06.079 | 68 |
9 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull-Honda | 1’06.696 | 1’06.089 | 68 |
10 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’06.614 | 1’06.145 | 64 |
11 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Ferrari | 1’06.630 | 1’06.147 | 70 |
12 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri-Honda | 1’06.166 | 32 | |
13 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1’06.386 | 1’06.251 | 64 |
14 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1’06.629 | 1’06.270 | 74 |
15 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’06.297 | 40 | |
16 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri-Honda | 1’06.397 | 1’06.451 | 74 |
17 | George Russell | Williams-Mercedes | 1’06.848 | 1’06.628 | 70 |
18 | Mick Schumacher | Haas-Ferrari | 1’07.473 | 1’06.886 | 58 |
19 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams-Mercedes | 1’07.180 | 1’07.669 | 62 |
20 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas-Ferrari | 1’08.081 | 1’07.404 | 60 |
21 | Robert Kubica | Alfa Romeo-Ferrari | 1’07.823 | 29 |
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Teams’ progress vs 2020
NB. The 2020 Austrian Grand Prix has been used as the point of comparison as the same tyre selection was used for that race.
Go ad-free for just £1 per month
>> Find out more and sign up
2021 Styrian Grand Prix
- Sainz praises Ferrari “teamwork” with Mercedes after unlapping himself from Hamilton
- W Series boss says it will not become a “billionaire girls’ club”
- Mercedes has more than just aerodynamic upgrades coming for 2021 car
- Alonso: F1 rule to ‘improve the show’ helps the big teams
- Is stamping out ‘burn-out’ celebrations a killjoy over-reaction?
DaveW (@dmw)
26th June 2021, 2:31
How was the long run pace among the top teams?
juan fanger (@juan-fanger)
26th June 2021, 3:54
@dmw – the Formula1 site has Red Bull just in front of Mercedes. Ferrari are 3rd fastest in terms of race pace but only 7th on qualy pace, so may see them advance in the race (if they can get through Turn 3 unscathed :-)
Hazel Southwell (@hazelsouthwell)
26th June 2021, 12:38
@dmw we do long run pace for the pre-race analysis, as it’s not key to qualifying