It seems that orange has become the new black at the F1 Austrian Grand Prix.

Previously reserved for at least one of the for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas machines, there was barely a hint of the darker shade when Max Verstappen and Lando Norris took control of the front row of the grid for Sunday’s race.

“Very happy!” exclaimed Norris to McLaren Media. “My best result in qualifying in Formula 1, so a big achievement for us as a team but also for myself. It was one of the best laps I’ve done. To only be half a tenth off pole is a great achievement for everyone. It makes you miss it from your early career! I don’t think we could’ve done a lot more, so P2 is awesome for us and a great position to start from tomorrow. Let’s see what we can do in the race.”

There was sheer delight amongst Verstappen’s substantial following, which set the Styrian countryside aglow in the hues which honoured their Dutch homeland, while the traditional McLaren orange took second, just a couple of tenths from the seemingly untouchable Red Bull Honda.

For Verstappen, pole position is becoming more of an expectation with the Red Bull Honda RB16B.

“Q1 and Q2 were very good and comfortable but I was not entirely happy in Q3 as my laps weren’t amazing,” Verstappen told Red Bull Racing Media. “I’m of course happy to be on pole, especially at the Red Bull Ring again, and having three poles in a row is great for the Team. But I cannot be entirely happy as I always want to be perfect and I always want to analyse what went well and what went wrong. Maybe that is how I grew up but I also believe that is how you keep improving. Now I’m just looking forward to tomorrow as we have a good race car and of course with Checo being third as well it is great for the Team and hopefully we can push together and score a lot of points.It was also amazing to see the orange army back in the grandstands. It has been a long time and they are so happy to be here cheering us on which I love to see.”

There were smiles all round when George Russell made it through to Q3 for the first time aboard his Williams-Mercedes, a place unknown for the team since the 2018 Italian Grand Prix. The fact that Russell made it through on the preferred medium compound tyre was not just noteworthy but also strategically important in the context of the race.

“It really felt like a pole position for us,” Russell said in the post qualifying media ring. “Getting into Q3 is one thing, but doing so on the medium tyre is massive. We were obviously debating prior to the session in which order we do the Q2, whether it’s the soft first followed by the medium, or vice-versa. But we were pretty adamant we didn’t want to go in the top 10 on the softs. To manage to pull that off, almost feels like a pole position, and the most pumped up I’ve been since I last won a race, probably.”

Aston Martin Cognizant also shone in qualifying after introducing a range of upgrades to their car for the Austrian Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel celebrated his birthday with 8th, two place ahead of teammate Lance Stroll. His enthusiasm was soon tempered by a three place grid penalty for impeding Fernando Alonso in Q2. A point that did not sit too well with the German.

“I think we agreed that we slow down between 8 and 9, which is what I did. Everybody passes me and jumps the queue, and then they all slowed down between 9 and 10, where we agreed not to slow down. You all know the rest,” Vettel said to Sky Sports. “If I get a penalty, we should all get a penalty and then we’re all the same again.”

Fernando Alonso was livid that his final flying lap was compromised when his sector times suggested that a top 10 place was well within the realm of possibility, however he chose to blame the team and not Vettel directly for the error.

“I don’t think that Seb could do much more because inside the car we are just relying on our engineers so I guess it was more the team,” said Alonso to Alpine Media.“Sometimes you have to do it [slow down] because the car in front is doing it, so as a consequence three or four cars behind are doing it. I don’t think that Seb did anything wrong because there were a couple of cars ahead of him already slowing down.”

Alonso and Vettel were not the only drivers who looked back on qualifying with the same sense of endearment. Lewis Hamilton, who had wanted to see an even fight with Verstappen for the 2021 crown found himself once again on the back foot with the McLaren and Red Bull Honda of Sergio Perez between him and his title rival. The possibility of Verstappen extending his championship lead sitting prominently in the mind of the British driver.

“In pure pace, a win is definitely out of the question,” Hamilton told F1.com. “Those guys firstly have got two cars in front and they’ve got three tenths on us, I think they’ve improved their car again this weekend.So I’d say that’s an easy cruise win for Max.

We tried everything to get more out of the car and the underlying pace is where we’re at at the moment,” He added. “We’ve really got to find performance in the following races.I don’t know if McLaren have brought an upgrade, but they’re mega quick today so great job from Lando. We’ve just got to try and improve.”

Daniel Ricciardo found himself outside the Top 10 for the second weekend in succession, his best in Q2 only good enough for 13th on the grid. Both McLaren machines had struggled during P3 with the pair separated by 25/100ths of a second in 15th and 16th. It was a session that Lando Norris described as “scruffy,” but one which also provided the data for his massive improvement during qualifying.

Ricciardo had felt “more comfortable” in the car throughout the weekend, but was unable to convert that into lap times. It was a result that further puzzled the Australian in his endeavour to get more from the MCL35M.

“Unfortunately, a similar result to last week. It did feel better, but it’s just not translating into lap-time. In Q1, I was pretty happy with the laps,” Ricciardo told McLaren Media. “I felt like I’d done quite well but I was still half a second off. So, it’s a bit of a head-scratch. I don’t really know where else to get the extra speed from at the moment, so I’ll keep chipping away. We’ve got the tyre choice tomorrow, so we’ll try to make another good start like last week and keep sailing through the field.”

Ricciardo wasn’t alone in missing out on Q3 with many of the more fancied cars and drivers also caught out by the incredibly close times amongst the mid field. Both Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc also missed out on Q3 after running on both compounds in Q2, while Alonso also missed out after his encounter with Vettel.

Their places on the grid may well turn out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise as five of the drivers that progressed to Q3 did so on the softest compound tyres, a choice that may well go against them during the race. A race start of the red wall tyres may well require a two stop strategy, while those on the medium tyre may elect to run a single stop strategy.

Images Red Bull Content Pool and McLaren Media

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