Photo: © Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
It's race day today in Austria for the Styrian Grand Prix, which is the 8th race of the 2021 Formula1 season. After the drivers got reacquainted with the track on Friday, they had one more practice session yesterday, and qualifying followed right after that. Lap times have improved by about two seconds, and some changes in the rankings have occurred as well.
Max Verstappen continues to hold a firm grip over this weekend's race, as he takes P1 in the qualifying session with an impressive lap time of 1:03.841. Valtteri Bottas went into Q1 on soft tires, and after 6 laps he was already considerably faster than he was on Friday, with the best lap sitting at 1:04.537. After 10 more laps in Q2 and another 7 of them in Q3, he claimed P2 in qualifying, with his lap being less than 0.2 seconds slower than that of his main rival.
Alas, after his incident on Friday, when he spun in the pit lane, Bottas was demoted from P2 to P5, much to the disappointment of his fans and team. Lewis Hamilton resumed his usual rhythm and clinched P1 after the first qualifying session, with a lap time of 1:04.672. Even though he was faster throughout Q2 and Q3, so were his opponents, so by the end of the day he was now down in P3, with his fastest lap being clocked at 1:04.067.
But due to Bottas receiving a penalty, Hamilton is moving up a spot for today's race, and he will be starting from P2, just behind Max Verstappen. Lando Norris is taking on today's challenge from P3, while Sergio Perez is down in P4, just ahead of Valtteri Bottas. Talking about his qualifying session Valtteri noted that: "The lap was good, I don’t think there were another two-tenths to find with our package today so I think we maximized what we could."
Looking forward to a tough battle against the Red Bull cars, Lewis Hamilton mentioned that "It will be close with Red Bull, so far this season they’ve had the edge in qualifying and it’s been tight in the races so we’re looking forward to it." Team principal Toto Wolf seems to be very confident ahead of the race as he stated that "Both drivers will be starting on Medium tires and we have generally raced stronger than we have qualified this season. I think we have a quick race car and a few different options on the strategy. It’s going to be an exciting afternoon of tough racing"
Alas, after his incident on Friday, when he spun in the pit lane, Bottas was demoted from P2 to P5, much to the disappointment of his fans and team. Lewis Hamilton resumed his usual rhythm and clinched P1 after the first qualifying session, with a lap time of 1:04.672. Even though he was faster throughout Q2 and Q3, so were his opponents, so by the end of the day he was now down in P3, with his fastest lap being clocked at 1:04.067.
But due to Bottas receiving a penalty, Hamilton is moving up a spot for today's race, and he will be starting from P2, just behind Max Verstappen. Lando Norris is taking on today's challenge from P3, while Sergio Perez is down in P4, just ahead of Valtteri Bottas. Talking about his qualifying session Valtteri noted that: "The lap was good, I don’t think there were another two-tenths to find with our package today so I think we maximized what we could."
Looking forward to a tough battle against the Red Bull cars, Lewis Hamilton mentioned that "It will be close with Red Bull, so far this season they’ve had the edge in qualifying and it’s been tight in the races so we’re looking forward to it." Team principal Toto Wolf seems to be very confident ahead of the race as he stated that "Both drivers will be starting on Medium tires and we have generally raced stronger than we have qualified this season. I think we have a quick race car and a few different options on the strategy. It’s going to be an exciting afternoon of tough racing"
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