P1racenews AI automatic summary:
An exciting sprint qualifying session in Austria saw Max Verstappen take to the top spot ahead of Lando Norris as Ferrari faced difficulties.
Max Verstappen secured pole position for the sprint race in Austria by outperforming Lando Norris by less than one-tenth of a second. Oscar Piastri will start row two ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes, with Charles Leclerc missing a lap time in SQ3 due to a car issue. Carlos Sainz finished fifth, leading Lewis Hamilton, while Sergio Perez settled for seventh. Alpine had a strong showing with both cars in the top 10. Moderate tires were in use for the first part of qualifying, followed by a switch to softs for the top 10 shootout. Kevin Magnussen narrowly missed out on the final round, taking 11th on the grid for the sprint session. Lance Stroll surpassed Fernando Alonso, with Yuki Tsunoda as the leading RB driver in 14th. Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hülkenberg failed to advance, leaving Zhou Guanyu as the slowest driver. Alex Albon ended in 19th, a few spots behind his teammate Logan Sargeant.
