Verstappen cruises to Austrian GP F1 Sprint victory.

Verstappen Austrian Sprint Victory – Red Bull’s Max Verstappen cruised to victory in the F1 Sprint ahead of the Austrian GP as title-rival Charles Leclerc prevailed against team-mate Carlos Sainz in a Ferrari battle for second place.

Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18, celebrates after winning the F1 Sprint, Formula 1 Grosser Preis Von Osterreich 2022, Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, Styria, Austria. Image credit to Mine Kasapoglu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images. Verstappen Austrian Sprint Victory, 2022 Austrian GP Sprint, Austrian GP Sprint Results, F1 Austrian GP Sprint.

The Dutchman needed to defend into turns one and three against an initially strong threat from Ferrari, but as Leclerc and Sainz went side-by-side, the reigning world champion was able to pull away to a comfortably win.

The start was delayed with an extra formation lap called for when Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu momentarily lost drive in his C42 racer out of the last corner on his way to the grid when his engine cut out.

The Chinese driver was able to find drive and pull away, but not before one tour had been taken off the 24 scheduled.

This came after BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso – due to start eighth on the grid – required to have a pit-lane start when his Renault-powered A522 racer would not fire up on the grid because of a technical problem the team was still yet to identify.

The regulations permitted that the car cannot be touched with three minutes remaining, meaning Alonso was left on the trolley and with the tyre blankets on.

Despite the possibility of a pit-lane start, the Spaniard did not take part in the F1 Sprint.

After the interruption, it was Leclerc who enjoyed a slightly better run off the line to force pole-sitter Verstappen to move to the inside line and squeeze the F1-75 closer to the pit-wall.

The Dutchman’s defensive worked paid off as Verstappen swept into the opening right-hand corner in the lead, but a compromised line allowed third-placed Sainz to threaten the Red Bull.

With Leclerc fighting Verstappen, Sainz was given room to dive ahead into turn one and a stronger exit enabled him to move his F1-75 to the outside to attempt an overtake.

The Spaniard put his nose in-front of Verstappen in the turn three braking zone, but on the outside and off the racing line, the British GP winner ran wide and then the subsequent over-steer on the less-grippy tarmac allowed Leclerc to pull away quicker and reclaim second place with a better run into the fourth corner.

The Ferrari battle allowed Verstappen to at first move away by half a second, an advantage the Dutchman then doubled at the end of lap one.

The Ferrari’s continued to fight, with Sainz carrying an early pace advantage to try and pass team-mate Leclerc on the outside of turns three and four, with the F1-75’s appearing to touch.

With the Ferrari duo allowed to battle, this left Sainz, who suffered a lock-up, to practically stop as he was squeezed towards the gravel trap, in-turn gifting Sprint leader Verstappen a two second gap.

Verstappen was able to push his RB18 racer to a lead of three seconds, but in the final few tours, Leclerc could lap a tenth or two quicker to gradually cut away at the margin.

Verstappen complained of his struggles on the C4 yellow-marked medium tyres, but the pace swing was not much of a threat as the Red Bull driver crossed the line to take the F1 Sprint victory by 1.675 seconds over Leclerc to extend his points lead to 44.

Sainz rounded out the top three as Mercedes’ George Russell came home fourth in a lonely race, his Silver Arrow having received extensive repairs following his last-corner crash later in Q3.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, who started the Sprint 13^th after his Q3 efforts were invalidated for a late second qualifying stage track limits infringement, which went initially undetected, recovered to a fifth-place finish.

His great climb through the field was aided by an opening corner collision, involving AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, who was lifted into the air and spun around.

The Frenchman, starting tenth, moved gradually to the left as he lined up the initial right-hander, but in doing so left Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton squeezed with the Williams FW44 of Alexander Albon.

The lack of room meant Hamilton’s right-front made contact with Gasly’s rear left, making his AT03 racer pop into the air and spin down to an eventual 15^th-place finish in the classification.

Perez also made swift moves on the two Haas entries before relegating Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, with the Frenchman taking sixth in-front of Kevin Magnussen.

Magnussen narrowly avoided the threat of team-mate Mick Schumacher, which left the German to ask the team for the Dane to check his pace and give his Haas team-mate DRS assistance.

This came as Hamilton tucked himself right behind the rear of the Haas VF-22 of Schumacher and stuck his nose alongside at turn three constantly, at one stage appearing to tap the Haas’s right-rear tyre, as he battle to clinch eighth and the final points place.

The seven-time world champion was still unable to overtake the Haas with DRS assistance owing to the pace of the Ferrari-powered engine of the VF-22, but Hamilton eventually passed Schumacher after a good drive out of turn three.

Schumacher left just enough room for the Briton to take position into the third corner.

Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas used the fight to close in but was not truly in it to settle for tenth in the classification.

Despite Daniel Ricciardo asking his McLaren team to be let by his team-mate, Lando Norris lead the Woking based-outfit to an 11-12^th placed finish.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll (running the C5 softs), Zhou and Gasly rounded out the top 15 in-front of the aforementioned Williams of Albon, who was relegated to 16^th after being hit with a five-second timed-penalty for squeezing Norris out of room on the exit of the third corner.

Behind AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda who was 17^th, Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel joined Alonso as retirees.

The German was called into the pits on the final tour with damage to his AMR22 racer, Vettel having spun out when colliding as he fought around the outside of turn seven.

2022 Austrian GP F1 Sprint – The Top Three

2022 Austrian GP F1 Sprint Winner – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18, 8 Points:

“It was great to see, got a lot of smoke at the end with all the orange. It was a decent race, we had decent pace at the beginning, and after that it was closely matched. As a Sprint should go, it’s quite flat-out… [the Ferraris] were fighting a bit so I was able to pull out a gap, but after that we were closely matched… The car is good, just a few things to fine tune but overall we’ve been really competitive again this weekend.”

2^nd Place – Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75, 7 Points:

“It was tricky, obviously the first part of the race was really tricky… had a little fight with Carlos and then towards the end I was starting to push… hopefully we can have a good start tomorrow and put some pressure on Max.”

3^rd Place – Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75, 6 Points:

“I had a good start then a couple of fights there at the beginning, first with Max at Turn 3 then Charles at Turn 3, which was good, it was good racing, as it should be… We will need to improve the pace a little because [Max] looked to be very strong at the start of the race, so we need to match him… Tomorrow is a different race, but the most important thing is that we are in the fight, and we will try our best to get him.”

Formula 1 Grosser Preis Von Osterreich 2022 F1 Sprint Results Classification (23 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	23	26:30.059	8
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	23	+1.675s	7
3	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	23	+5.644s	6
4	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	23	+13.429s	5
5	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	23	+18.302s	4
6	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	23	+31.032s	3
7	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	23	+34.539s	2
8	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	23	+35.447s	1
9	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	23	+37.163s	0
10	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	23	+37.557s	0
11	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	23	+38.580s	0
12	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	23	+39.738s	0
13	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	23	+48.241s	0
14	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	23	+50.753s	0
15	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	23	+52.125s	0
16	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	23	+52.412s	0
17	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	23	+54.556s	0
18	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	23	+68.694s	0
19	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	21	DNF	0
NC	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	0	DNS	0

Note – Albon received a five-second time penalty for forcing another driver off track. Bottas required to start the Grand Prix from back of grid for use of additional power unit elements.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1115/austria/sprint-results.html

2022 Austrian GP Starting Grid

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI
3	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI
4	63	George Russell	MERCEDES
5	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT
6	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT
7	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI
8	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES
9	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI
10	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES
11	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES
12	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES
13	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI
14	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT
15	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES
16	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT
17	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES
18	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES
19	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT
20	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI