F1: Verstappen Converts Pole To Sprint Victory

Max Verstappen led the F1 Sprint at the 2022 Austrian GP weekend from lights to flag to seal pole position start for the Grand Prix tomorrow. Behind him, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz battled in the opening laps hard and fair, but Leclerc showcased wonderful defence to keep Sainz at bay, once again proving that he is one of the best drivers on the grid when it comes to defence. George Russel had a rather uneventful race behind the top 3, and will start on the second row tomorrow as well.

Sergio Perez had his final Q2 lap time deleted yesterday post the qualifying got over, rendering his Q3 entry and laps invalid and pushing him down to P13. However, the Mexican driver drove wonderfully making up a handful of places right at the start, and eventually moving his way up into P5. After another good qualifying yesterday, Fernando Alonso couldn't start today's race owing to an electrical issue, leaving the P8 grid spot empty. Zhou Guanyu also had problems in the formation lap and his engine gave up, but he managed to get it going again. Having dropped out of order though, Zhou had to abandon his grid spot and start the race from the pitlane, which also triggered a second formation lap at the start.

The start of the race saw a near identical incident between Hamilton and Gasly, as there was in Great Britain between Russel and Gasly. Thankfully, this time Gasly managed to avoid running into any other car, and both of them could continue the race. Lewis Hamilton was stuck behind the two Haases for the longest of time, and Mick Schumacher used every trick in the book to keep the 7-time World Champion at bay. But Hamilton eventually found his way through as Mick fell over a second behind Magnussen, and lost his assist of the DRS coming from his teammate. His brilliant multi lap defence sealed P7 for his teammate though, as Hamilton couldn't catch him in time, and finished only P8, picking up the final point of the F1 Sprint.

Sebastian Vettel had a stellar first few laps and found himself up into P14 having started plum last, but he was tapped by Alex Albon in the same fashion that Albon was tapped by Hamilton a couple of years ago when he was on his way to the podium. The end result was similar to the 2020 incident, and Vettel ended up dropping all the way back again. McLaren drivers started the race in P15 and P16, and ended it in P11 and P12, putting them in the earshot of points tomorrow. Valtteri Bottas rounded off the top 10, and his teammate Zhou, despite starting from the pitlane finished in 14th.

2022 F1 Round 11 Austrian GP: F1 Sprint Result