Piastri is “ready for fun” in Spielberg Sprint

McLaren had a quiet start to the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, but the Woking-based outfit eventually delivered a brilliant performance to secure second and third place on the grid for the Spielberg Sprint.

Having only fractionally missed out on a potential victory at last Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, Lando Norris was once again in great form on the opening day of the Austrian weekend.

The Briton put together a strong lap around the Red Bull Ring in the last segment of the sprint qualifying session, provisionally grabbing pole before being displaced by the championship leader Max Verstappen.

Speaking of his day, Norris commented: “Overall, a good Sprint quali today, P2 is pretty strong. It was close but it has been all year.

"Possibly not my tidiest Qualifying session, but I managed to pull it out at the end and produce a nice lap. P2 for tomorrow’s Sprint is a positive start to the weekend, we’ll keep pushing on from here.”

His team-mate Oscar Piastri was close on Norris’ tail and will start from P3 on the grid for the Sprint. The Australian is buoyed by the result after a difficult weekend at Barcelona.

“P3, not a bad effort today. We’ve got a couple of corners to tidy-up, but I’m happy to be able to qualify well for the Sprint. We’re in a good spot for tomorrow and will work hard overnight ready for the fun to begin.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella was understandably delighted with the result of the sprint qualifying session, but he stressed that the top four teams are separated only by tiny margins once again.

“It’s been a tricky Sprint Qualifying session. It wasn’t easy to put laps together and there was a bit of work to do to find the right position in the out laps. We needed to be very careful with traffic but, ultimately, the outcome is positive with P2 and P3 on the grid for the Sprint race.

"This is a position we can try and capitalise on and see if we can go for the win. At the same time, we once again can see how tight the field is at the front. There’s really not much to pick between Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes, so we need to maximise the package, the driving, the execution and see what we can do tomorrow," noted Stella.