Verstappen praises his car’s performance in high-speed corners after scary moment in practice

Championship runaway leader Max Verstappen took another pole position, having stormed to the top of the timesheets ahead of the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in a busy Sprint Qualifying session. F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo reports from the Red Bull Ring.

The Dutchman had a scary moment in the sole practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix as his car came to a halt on the start-finish straight. However, it later emerged that the issue was down to an oil sensor malfunction triggered by Verstappen running over the kerbs.

“It was a positive day today. I am happy as we started off the day well and the car was in a good window. There was a small issue with the sensor in the practice session but we fixed that really quickly.

“Heading into qualifying, the car was really strong and I could push. We were quick in the high speed, which is important round here and hopefully we can keep that going tomorrow.

“Of course, there are always areas that we can do better so we will look at that tonight. Looking to the Sprint race tomorrow, this will give us an early indication of how the pace of the car will be for the race. But all in all, it was definitely a good start and I am looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”

His team-mate Sergio Perez endured a difficult time at the last three consecutive rounds, but he appeared to be more comfortable in his car from the first laps in today’s opening practice session.

However, the Mexican ran into traffic on the out-lap before his final qualifying tour which meant that he was unable to set a competitive time, and will only start the 100km Spielberg Sprint from P7.

“I think we were making good progress from the start during the first session and in to Sprint qualifying. We were in the mix today, but unfortunately couldn’t really show it especially in SQ3 with Esteban in front.

“He left a very big gap in front of him and in the end, we were going to the limit against time and I crossed the line with around a second difference. It’s a shame because we had promising pace today, but unfortunately we were not able to maximise on this because of circumstances out of our control.

“ I’m confident that tomorrow will be a better day, and that we can make up some ground here at our home race."