Key events
Leclerc’s thoughts after finishing second:
I’m very pleased. It’s been a long time since we started on the front row. It’s been a difficult season overall but the team have kept pushing. We’ve brought some new parts this weekend, which for sure made a difference because the gaps are super close.
I’m very happy with the lap. It’s a good start to the weekend. We know that we have a better car normally in the race than qualifying, so I hope we can put a bit more pressure on McLaren tomorrow.
I can’t imagine Lando’s lap with our car, but we are going to work towards that. It’s not to minimise Lando’s job. He must have done an incredible job. Congrats to him. He deserves it. Tomorrow we’ll try to bring him a tough time.
Piastri was another driver that also suffered from the yellow flag. It would have been hard for him to match Norris but he might have managed second.
Norris speaks after taking pole:
It was a good lap, that’s for sure.
My Q3 run one was good but I knew there were a few places where, if I just got it right, I could still get quite a bit more time and I did exactly that.
I did what I planned to do and when I plan to do something and it goes right, it normally goes very, very well. So very happy. A good day and it has been a good weekend for me so far, so hopefully we can keep it up.
It’s a long season and I still savour this moment, especially as some of my tougher moments have been in qualy. So to put in the lap like today, to put in the performance like I had, was pleasing for myself. I’m excited.
I want to prove to myself over and over again and hopefully this is the beginning of it.
Confirmation from replays that the yellow flag that hindered Verstappen went up after Gasly spun through the last corner.
Norris takes pole position
Well deserved! The McLaren driver has been dominant all weekend and finishes in style – half a second faster than Leclerc with a time of 1:03.971. It is his first pole in Austria!
A yellow flag comes up which forces Verstappen to back out of his final attempt. He remains in seventh …
Every driver now has new soft tyres now as we enter the final minutes of Q3. Verstappen is speeding up, trying to challenge Norris …
Sainz, who was eliminated in Q1, speaking to Sky Sports: “We put new brakes for qualifying like we always do but as soon as I got out of the pits, the car was pulling to one side. On top of that, I had quite a lot of damage to the floor, which I expected, given how hard the car was to drive. Obviously not happy because too many issues, too many problems and at the end a Q1 exit.
On his chances for Sunday: “We’ll see tomorrow. Today was not our day; way too many problems again in qualifying and we need to find out why we are experiencing so many problems. I’ve been the fastest of the midfield on race pace, which gives encouragement for tomorrow, but we’re definitely starting too far back.”
Latest order: Norris, Leclerc, Piastri, Hamilton, Russell, Verstappen, Antonelli, Bortoleto, Gasly and Lawson.
Norris’s lap is confirmed with a time of 1:04.268.
Hamilton is in fourth, two tenths ahead of his former teammate Russell.
Verstappen can only get as high as sixth …
Norris faster than Piastri again. The Briton is confident as he is almost three tenths up on his teammate.
And what’s this? Leclerc splits the McLaren duo and is in second!
Q3 begins
Russell almost goes into the side of Leclerc as soon as Q3 begins. Everyone is speeding out for this final qualifier with the stakes high.
A great performance from Bortoleto, with the 20-year-old Brazilian through to Q3 for the first time ever.
“Let’s go! I hope the first of many,” he tells his team over the radio.
There was an incident in Q2 where Norris was going quite slow with Leclerc behind him but the Ferrari man did have room to go around,
It was a McLaren one-two for Norris and Piastri in Q2 (shocker!) with Ferrari’s Leclerc in third.
Gasly surged up to sixth, which knocked Alonso down to 11th. Antonelli gets into P10 by the skin of his teeth.
Out in Q2
11 Alonso
12 Albon
13 Hadjar
14 Colapinto
15 Bearman
Bortoleto races a great lap as he slots into third, 0.4s off Norris.
Q2 resumes
No one seems wants to go out but Verstappen pulls the trigger and all of a sudden all 15 cars head on to the circuit.
The session should resume in two minutes. Albon, Bearman, Alonso, Bortoleto and Colapinto are in the danger zone in Q2.
Red flag
The grass has set fire. The flag goes up and the drivers are back in the garages. This happened earlier this season in Japan.
Is anyone going to beat the McLaren duo? Unlikely! Norris beats Piastri by a tenth and they are half a second clear of Verstappen in third. But here come the Ferraris again …
Verstappen says his car is “completely undriveable”.
It is even worse before. I don’t even know what to say.
Lawson goes top before the McLaren’s take the track. Can he hold on to that spot?
The Ferraris on their used soft tyres race slower than they did at the end of Q1 with Leclerc racing to a time of 1:05.446, two tenths quicker than Hamilton.
Q2 begins
Here we go! Who will make the top 10? The Ferraris are first out on the track.
Sainz on the radio tells his team there is something wrong with his car.
There’s damage in the car, for sure. The car is undriveable. When I say undriveable, it’s pulling under braking, no load in high speed. Undriveable.
Norris-Piastri continue their one-two pattern but it was Lawson in third for Racing Bulls. His teammate Hadjar was fifth, with Alpine’s Gasly sandwiched between them in fourth.
Out in Q1
16 Lance Stroll
17 Esteban Ocon
18 Yuki Tsunoda
19 Carlos Sainz
20 Nico Hulkenberg
Russell moves up to 11th … and Sainz and Tsunoda are on the brink of going out in Q1 while his teammate is in ninth.
Lawson moves up to third! What a run from him. Tsunoda is now in the drop zone at 17th after Alonso moves up to 8th. Russell is also on the fringes in his Mercedes in 16th …
Sainz is now out of the drop zone but only just with a spot in 15th!
Hulkenberg, Ocon, Stroll, Bearman and Alonso are now in the drop zone.
Alonso and Sainz have put on some new soft tyres to try to find some speed.
Piastri goes into second after he recovers from that early mistake. Alonso and Sainz occupy the bottom two spots and risk their spot in Q2 if they don’t find some pace. A good lap from Bortoleto, who is now in fifth in the Sauber.
Piastri goes into the gravel on Turn 6 after turning wide which means he is doing a slow lap at the moment. Verstappen led for a few moments before Norris raced the four tenths faster.
Verstappen is out on the track as Hulkenberg leads with a time 1:05.681.
Ocon leads the pack in his Haas at the moment with a time of 1:05.745 just as the McLaren duo and Hamilton in the Ferrari opt to come out of the garage.
Qualifying begins
Here we go! Twenty cars are about to fight in Q1 for a spot in the next round. It has been looking good for McLaren, can they keep the streak up? Let’s see!
Qualifying delayed
Our start time of 3pm BST has been delayed by five minutes due to the delayed F2 race that had a red flag earlier this afternoon.
The former Ferrari chair Luca di Montezemolo has joined the board of McLaren. McLaren and Ferrari, the two oldest and most successful teams in Formula One history, have been rivals for decades and were involved in a notorious ‘Spygate’ scandal that erupted in 2007.
A filing with Companies House by Abu Dhabi-owned McLaren Group Holdings, which controls Woking-based sports car maker McLaren Automotive, registered Montezemolo as a director on Friday. The 77-year-old Italian joined Ferrari in 1973 as founder Enzo Ferrari’s assistant and became team manager in 1974, a year before the late Niki Lauda secured his first title.
He also presided over the Formula One team during a golden era when Michael Schumacher won five of his career seven titles between 2000 and 2004 and served as chair of Ferrari and parent FIAT. McLaren were stripped of all their championship points and fined a record $100m over a dossier of stolen Ferrari technical documents found in the possession of McLaren’s chief designer Both Ferrari and McLaren are under different management now, with Montezemolo resigning his roles at the Italian luxury sports car maker in 2014 and focusing on other business interests. Reuters
Verstappen was not able to keep up the pace today to match the McLarens but it would be foolish to rank the reigning world champion’s ability in qualifying. This is his stomping ground after all.
This may not be his best season but the talent is there, so much so, that Mercedes’ Toto Wolff has confirmed his team are considering a swoop for the driver.
Final practice results
Lando Norris laid down a marker ahead of qualifying by finishing fastest in final practice for the Austrian Grand Prix. Norris, who set the quickest time at the Red Bull Ring on Friday, was again the fastest man in the concluding running before qualifying.
Norris’ best effort was enough to see off McLaren team-mate and championship rival Oscar Piastri, who holds a 22-point lead in the standings, by 0.118 seconds.
Max Verstappen finished third for Red Bull, two tenths behind Norris, and a place clear of Charles Leclerc. Lewis Hamilton was fifth in the other Ferrari, 0.466 sec off the leading pace. George Russell, a winner last time out in Canada, took sixth spot. PA Media
Lando Norris has insisted he and McLaren will come back stronger after the British driver’s title ambitions took a blow when he had to retire at the Canadian Grand Prix having made an error in hitting his teammate Oscar Piastri on track.
Norris was challenging Piastri for fourth place in Montreal when he attempted to pass and made what he later described as a “stupid” mistake.
Norris immediately took responsibility for the accident after the race and apologised to Piastri and his team for his misjudgment.
Speaking before this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, the 11th race of the 24-meeting season, Norris confirmed he and the team engaged in extensive talks about the incident, with the British driver believing it had been a beneficial process.
Not the most joyful conversations but conversations that needed to be had clearly. Some very constructive things and in an unfortunate way but a good way I think many things have come out stronger than I would say they were prior to the weekend. Which you might not expect but is a good outcome. Through an unfortunate circumstance a lot has been learned and a lot of things have turned into being stronger than they were before.
Read more from Giles Richards at the Red Bull Ring below.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to qualifiers of the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg.
The Red Bull Ring is a picturesque circuit that drivers find to be relatively simple. But it does come with some secret tough spots. The downhill braking zone at Turn 4 is a spot where so many drivers end up in the gravel. The track surface is quite old and highly abrasive, which teams will factor when picking their tires.
As it has been for most of the season, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris – both of McLaren – lead the driver standings with the defending champion Max Verstappen in third. Norris ended the final practice session at the Red Bull Ring in first, closely followed by Piastri.
Join me for the buildup and news before we get to the 3pm BST qualifiers. And, as always, feel free to send your predictions, questions and concerns via email.