Following the rules is pretty much ingrained in most people’s psyche. Do the right thing and get rewarded, push the boundaries and you are more than likely going to suffer the consequences of your actions in one form or another.

It is that ethos that sums up qualifying for the Styrian Grand Prix, where the smallest miscalculation pushes a car over the kerbs and into the realm of a track limit violation. All four wheels over the kerb, even by the barest of margins sees that lap time scrapped. Given the tyre window and short qualifying periods, any such error can prove to be disastrous, where less than 2 tenths of a second meant the difference between a place in Q3 or an early finish to the day.

Thus qualifying sat on a knife edge that played on the mind of even the most experienced drivers int he field.

“It was a stressful qualifying with no room for mistakes, thanks to the close gaps and track limits at the last two corners,” Fernando Alonso told Alpine F1 Team media.

Max Verstappen claimed pole position to the surprise of very few at the circuit owned by Red Bull’s Dietrich Mateschitz. Verstappen had set the pace on the opening day and went on to top the time sheets in Q1. Lando Norris had thrown the cat amongst the pigeons after an unspectacular P3 to go second fastest in Q2 in a time of 104. 298, but it was Verstappen who re-established the status quo with a 103.84 in Q3, becoming the only driver to dip into the 1min 3 second bracket.

The grid represented somewhat of a departure from the norms of 2021 as the Williams duo of George Russell and Nicholas Latifi shone during the early moments of Q1. Latifi sat in 7th place after the first qualifying runs and was 11th as the chequered flag fell with the likes of Sainz, Vettel and Ricciardo all facing elimination. Latifi eventually missed out on a place in Q2 by less than 4/100ths of a second.

Esteban Ocon, Kimi Raikkonen, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin were also eliminated, while Daniel Ricciardo was relieved to survive the first cut, having lost pace on Saturday in his McLaren after finishing Friday in P2.

“We just lost a lot of speed overnight,” Daniel Ricciardo said to Sky Sports.“It’s not even quali that we were slow, it was already this morning. We put the car on track and we were quite a bit off. It’s another session where we are a little bit scratching our heads.

At times it was a long way off, it was a second or something which is a bit strange. Obviously yesterday was strong and encouraging so I wouldn’t say there is many answers at the moment why we struggled so much today but we’ll figure it out and look forward to tomorrow now. Definitely didn’t expect to be here after yesterday.”

The short turn around between Q1 and Q2 provided little opportunity for McLaren to make any meaningful changes to Ricciardo’s car and he joined George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Sebastian Vettel and Antonio Giovinazzi on the sidelines for Q3. The difference between the relative performances of Norris and Ricciardo was highlighted by the video footage of the pair as they finished their second runs in qualifying. Norris barely hanging within the track limit boundary at the final corner, while Ricciardo completed the lap well within the track limits. A matter of less then half a metre, but a mile away in terms of time.

“Today is what happened, a bit of a mystery, actually. We were obviously quick yesterday, and I know it’s only Friday practice, and I didn’t expect to be fighting for pole position today,” Ricciardo said later to Sky Sports. “We were pretty comfortable with everything. We put the car on track today and we were pretty much one second slower. I think that qualifying was then a product of this morning, we were just off the pace.

Why? I’m not sure. But it was definitely one of those days, a bit of a frustrating one. So we’ll try to understand why and how. It’s not like there was a lot of time here or there, it was just a little bit of lap time everywhere, and you try and improve a bit.

I just felt like everything I did, I was not really able to gain anything else out of the car.

We fine-tuned a little bit, but nothing crazy. It was nothing which should explain being so far off today. You obviously change the car to try to be quicker! So we definitely didn’t expect this today.”

Verstappen set the new benchmark with a 1.03.841 after his first run in Q3 to lead Hamilton, Norris, Perez and Gasly. Valtteri Bottas’ first flying lap looked good until he came across a touring Alpha Tauri of Yuki Tsunoda. The incident cost both, Bottas’s lost time and ended in P4, while Tsunoda later dropped 3 grid places after Stewards had reviewed the incident.

Hamilton was amongst a group of drivers to head our for one last attack and found himself sandwiched between a gaggle of slow moving cars. He moved off the racing line to pass Perez, Norris, Alonso and Bottas in the dying moments of the session before starting his fast lap and later suggested that the move may have compromised his chances of securing pole position. His best of a 1.04.067 was only the 3rd fastest time.

“Yeah definitely, in hindsight,” Hamilton told f1.com when asked if the overtake had affected his lap. “I was worried everyone was going so slow, and not having the tyres up to temperature. I went on all the dirty lines, just picking up dirt on the tyres, then poor exit out of the last corner. By Turn 1 I was already a tenth down and then by Turn 3 I was two-tenths behind. So there was no hope in that respect. Then I tried to overdrive it to regather that time lost and it didn’t work.

It was a difficult session for me,” Hamilton said. “Generally I’ve had a really good weekend so far, of course not as quick as Max but I did a lot of work before the event and the car was feeling great all day yesterday. We’ve just been chipping away at it. Each change is just trying to eke out like 10 milliseconds or something. Then I got into qualifying and the car just didn’t feel as great as it did in P3. I don’t fully understand why.

In FP3 I did a lap and I was like ‘that’s the one I need in Q3’ and I got nowhere near it!

The British driver inherited 2nd after teammate Bottas was also handed a 3 place penalty for a pitlane spin on Friday.

For Max Verstappen it was a case of smooth sailing towards another pole position and another race win in his quest for the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship.

“It is of course a great result to take the Team’s first pole position at our home track and I feel very good about that,” Verstappen told Red Bull Racing Media. “We made a big step forward in qualifying this year and although the car has been competitive and pretty easy to set-up all weekend we still made some good changes for qualifying. From my side, the first lap in Q3 felt pretty good. Around here you don’t have many corners but it is actually quite hard to nail the lap because of the braking up to Turn 3 and 4 where it is easy to lose a tenth if you make a tiny mistake. When I started driving in F1 this was always one of the tracks that I felt good at and as there aren’t many corners the driver can make a big difference, which I like. Some tracks are pretty straight forward on how you take corners but here there are a few options for that which makes it more enjoyable. I expect it will be super tight again tomorrow. We know Mercedes have a strong race car and they are pretty good on the tyres so it will be very close, which I think is also good for the fans and the way everyone likes it.”

Driver		Grid	Qual time
	M. Verstappen Red Bull·#33	1	1:03.841
	L. Hamilton Mercedes·#44	2	1:04.067
	L. Norris McLaren·#4	3	1:04.120
	S. Pérez Red Bull·#11	4	1:04.168
	V. Bottas Mercedes·#77	5	1:04.035

	P. Gasly AlphaTauri·#10	6	1:04.236
	C. Leclerc Ferrari·#16	7	1:04.472
	F. Alonso Alpine·#14	8	1:04.574
	L. Stroll Aston Martin·#18	9	1:04.708
	G. Russell Williams·#63	10	1:04.671
	Y. Tsunoda AlphaTauri·#22	11	1:04.514
	C. Sainz Jr. Ferrari·#55	12	1:04.800
	D. Ricciardo McLaren·#3	13	1:04.808
	S. Vettel Aston Martin·#5	14	1:04.875
	A. Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo·#99	15	1:04.913
	N. Latifi Williams·#6	16	1:05.175
	E. Ocon Alpine·#31	17	1:05.217
	K. Räikkönen Alfa Romeo·#7	18	1:05.429
	M. Schumacher Haas·#47	19	1:06.041
	N. Mazepin Haas·#9	20	1:06.192

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