Event: Austrian F1 Grand Prix
Track: Red Bull Ring circuit
Weather: dry 21.7°C
Tarmac: dry 36.3°C
Humidity: 30%
Wind: 2.5 m/s SW
Pressure: 943.5 bar
Max Verstappen also won the second Sprint qualifying event of the 2022 F1 season for Red Bull Racing. He started from P1 and drove unthreatened to the finish on the Red Bull Ring.
Before the start of the race Fernando Alonso's Alpine had a technical problem and still had the tyre blankets on when the warming up lap started. The Spanish driver had to start form the pitlane because of this, but didn't got out the Alpine garage. In the very last corner of the warm-up lap Alfa Romeo driver Guanyu Zhou stopped, when his engine stalled. An extra formation lap was used and Zhou now also had to start from the pitlane.
The start of the Sprint was clean until AlphaTauri driver PIerre Gasly collided with the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and went into the air to spin off in turn 1. After one lap Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez had already won five positions and was driving on P8.
Both Ferrari drivers had a lot of battles on the track and Sainz was a real threat for Leclerc for the first time this season, but could not get passed his teammate.
After 10 laps race leader Verstappen already was 3 seconds in front of Leclerc. In this lap Pérez overtook both Haas drivers Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen and moved up to P6. One lap later the Red Bull driver already passed the other Alpine driver Esteban Ocon for P5.
Sebastian Vettel who was fighting in the Aston Martin for position with Williams Alex Albon got hit on the left rear at turn 6 end ended up in the gravel. Vettel was able to reverse out the gravel and continue, but had to retire at the end of the race with damage.
Behind both Haas cars was Lewis Hamilton trying to get into the poinst. The Mercedes driver was close a couple of times to overtake Schumacher to score the final point of the Sprint. Hamilton did everything he could, but could not get passed the Haas driver who could use DRS on every straight, because he drove inside the 1 second gap of Magnussen.
In lap 22 Hamilton could get P8 from Schumacher, because the German driver lost DRS on his teammate.
Sprint Quali 2022 Austrian GP
| P | No | Driver | Team | Time | Laps | Points |
| 1 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 26:30.059 | 23 | 8 |
| 2 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +1.675s | 23 | 7 |
| 3 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +5.644s | 23 | 6 |
| 4 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | +13.429s | 23 | 5 |
| 5 | 11 | Sergio Pérez | Red Bull | +18.302s | 23 | 4 |
| 6 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | +31.032s | 23 | 3 |
| 7 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | +34.539s | 23 | 2 |
| 8 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +35.447s | 23 | 1 |
| 9 | 47 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | +37.163s | 23 | |
| 10 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | +37.557s | 23 | |
| 11 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +38.580s | 23 | |
| 12 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | +39.738s | 23 | |
| 13 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | +48.241s | 23 | |
| 14 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | Alfa Romeo | +50.753s | 23 | |
| 15 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | +52.125s | 23 | |
| 16 | 23 | Alex Albon | Williams | +52.412s | 23 | |
| 17 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | +54.556s | 23 | |
| 18 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | +68.694s | 23 | |
| 19 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | DNF | 21 | |
| 20 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | DNF | 1 |
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Piece of cake today,as long as those red cars keep tripping each other up,check great drive, easy for Prince George and well done the Haas cars Happy days....
Ferraris helped Max a bit with their early battling.
Good further down the field, although I'd be unsurprised if Albon gets another 5-second addition for spinning Seb.
Backing out would've been since he had more to lose than gain by sticking beside Seb.
Would've been 'wiser'
Fun race, good result, but I repeat, DRS is artificial and I hate it. I thought that it was supposed to be redundant with the new design. Make it so.
I completely agree with you regarding the DRS, it casts a shadow over a car's and a driver's ability.
IMO sprint races are a crock of sheet and should not have any bearing on the grid positions achieved in qualifying. As I said before, Liberty are making F1 the same format as speedway in USA, only difference being that F1 has fewer cars involved!
Yeah, starting a race with 18 cars on the grid is bleak but nobody seems to care. I know that it's blasphemous, but IndyCar is now more exciting. Sad.
Who chose this track for a sprint race ,waste of time.
And what is it with team mates who are directly behind their team mate saying they are faster and wanting the team to swap them around , I'm looking at you Leclerc and Ricciardo . Pass on the track if you are faster