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Charles Leclerc was extremely pleased to be back on the front row after an exceptional end to Q3 for the Scuderia Ferrari driver at the Austrian Grand Prix.

0.048s was all stood between Leclerc and pole position, with Max Verstappen just beating the Ferrari man to secure his fourth consecutive pole position. Despite that, Lecler was really happy with the progress that Ferrari are making with their recent upgrade package seemingly taking them ahead of Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team and Aston Martin Armaco Cognizant F1 Team in the performance standings.

Leclerc admitted that they didn’t expect to be so close to Oracle Red Bull Racing and Verstappen and is hoping that they can remain consistent as they head into an action-packed weekend with the Sprint race set to come on Saturday.

“It feels good to finally have a clean qualifying again and to be back on the front row. The feeling from the car has been a bit better in the last three races and then in Q1 and Q2, it was all about building up to that lap in Q3 and I managed to put everything into that last lap and got very close to Max.”

“We hadn’t expected to be that close to the Red Bull so it’s a good step forward and I would like to thank everyone back at the factory for all the work they have done in the last few weeks in order to bring an update package at Spielberg, earlier than planned. It’s really impressive and helped us to perform well today.

Max Verstappen achieved his fourth consecutive pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix, but he admitted that the qualifying session on Friday was anything but straightforward. Despite his remarkable pole position, Verstappen encountered hurdles during the session, and the margin to the driver in second was much lower than in previous races we’ve seen this season.

During both Q1 and Q2, Verstappen faced setbacks as he was found to have exceeded track limits, resulting in the loss of lap times. However, the Dutchman demonstrated resilience and quickly recovered from these setbacks, putting in banker laps to give him some stability within each of the sessions without the worry of elimination. He managed to navigate through the challenges and advanced to the pole shootout, where he made a strong push to secure the coveted front position on the starting grid during Q3.

With a final time of 1:04.391s, Verstappen managed to secure pole over Scuderia Ferrari driver, Charles Leclerc, by a margin of just under half a tenth of a second. The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver openly admitted that achieving this feat required a delicate balance between taking risks and reaping the rewards. Verstappen’s strategic approach and skilful execution ultimately led him to claim the top spot.

“It’s great to be on pole here at the Red Bull Ring, it feels good. It wasn’t a straightforward qualifying because of all the track limits. It’s very hard to judge the white line here, a lot of us got caught out so at least it wasn’t just us.

“Today was all about surviving, we just needed to bank the laps as we weren’t able to push hard. It’s such a short lap here so we are all pretty close together. We’ve got a long weekend ahead so a lot can happen, tomorrow will be a completely different story. Today, the car was quick and we were ahead, that’s the most important thing.”

King of the Hammers (KOH) is a renowned off-road racing event that combines rock crawling and high-speed desert racing. It takes place annually in Johnson Valley, California, USA. Here's more information about the King of the Hammers:

1. Format: King of the Hammers is a week-long event that includes multiple races and activities. The centerpiece of the event is the King of the Hammers main race, also known as the "Ultimate Desert Race." It features a grueling course that combines high-speed sections across open desert terrain with technical rock crawling sections.

2. Terrain: The race takes place in the harsh and rugged terrain of Johnson Valley, which is known for its challenging rock formations and sandy desert stretches. Drivers face steep climbs, rocky trails, narrow canyons, and off-camber obstacles, testing their driving skills and the capabilities of their vehicles.

3. Classes: The King of the Hammers race features several vehicle classes, including Ultra4 4400 Unlimited 4x4s, 4500 Modified Class 4x4s, 4800 Legends Class 4x4s, UTVs (side-by-sides), and motorcycles. Each class has specific rules and regulations, ensuring fair competition among the participants.

4. Strategy and Skill: King of the Hammers is not just about speed; it requires a combination of strategy, vehicle setup, and driving skill. Drivers need to navigate challenging rock obstacles, choose the best lines, and make quick decisions to tackle the varied terrain. The race tests both the driver's physical endurance and mental fortitude.

Max Verstappen secured his fourth consecutive pole position with an incredible performance at the Red Bull Ring to edge out Charles Leclerc, who put everything on the line in his final lap in Q3.

Lando Norris was one of the best performers alongside Alex Albon, while a track limit violation for Sergio Pérez saw him out of qualifying in Q2 once again as the pressure mounts on the Mexican.

Q1: AlphaTauri Duo Out, Disappointment for Magnussen

Q1 saw constant running and excitement around the Red Bull Ring, with twenty drivers looking to find the optimum lap time and track position on one of the shortest tracks on the Formula 1 calendar.

The first action of the session saw Valtteri Bottas bring out the red flag after he spun on the exit of turn one causing his car to be facing the wrong way. The red flag added extra pressure with just over ten minutes to go with a number of drivers already losing lap times due to track limit violations, including Verstappen. As is expected with the Dutchman though, it didn’t take long for him to put in another laptime and get himself back to the top of the timesheets.

Pérez put in a late lap to lift himself away from the danger into second place, while George Russell also left it late to secure a place in Q2.

Franz Tost says Daniel Ricciardo will only be considered for a drive with Scuderia AlphaTauri if none of the young Red Bull Junior Team drivers are ready to make the jump into the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

Ricciardo rejoined the Red Bull family as test and reserve in 2023 after the Australian lost his seat with the McLaren F1 Team, and he has been linked with replacing Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri after the Dutchman’s difficult start to life in Formula 1.

However Tost, who will leave his role of Team Principal at AlphaTauri at the end of the current season, says a young driver, such as Ayuma Iwasa and Isack Hadjar would be considered for the seat first, and only if it was clear than none of the many Junior Team drivers are ready to step up would Ricciardo be an option.

“The philosophy is quite clear, the performance decides,” Tost is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “Of course, the team philosophy is to educate young drivers.

“But if young drivers are not currently there – there are coming some good young drivers, [Ayumu] Iwasa is doing a good job, [Isack] Hadjar is doing a good job – but it’s simply a little bit too early for them.

Nyck de Vries says Dr. Helmut Marko ‘would appreciate’ it if can prove him wrong about picking him for the Scuderia AlphaTauri ride for the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

The Dutchman was brought in to replace the BWT Alpine F1 Team bound Pierre Gasly for the current season but has had a difficult start to the year, de Vries remaining one of only two drivers yet to score a point alongside Williams Racing’s Logan Sargeant.

Dr. Marko said Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner had reservations about bringing in de Vries, but Marko made the call to sign the Dutchman, a move he now feels could be wrong.

“Not often, but sometimes we do. The last one… I would say de Vries,” Marko was quoted as saying by PlanetF1.com about whether he and Horner were always in agreement over driver choices. “Basically it’s AlphaTauri, but we’re a big family and we get opinions.

“He [Horner] was not a fan of De Vries.”

Lance Stroll admits that Fernando Alonso’s performances during the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season so far proves that he will have to step up his game, with the Spaniard outscoring the Canadian by eighty points after the opening eight races.

Whereas Alonso has scored podium finishes in six of those races, Stroll has yet to better fourth place, and he has often played second fiddle to his Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team team-mate.

Stroll says that Alonso is the best team-mate he has ever had but he knows the Spaniard has been on a different level to him so far this season, and he knows what he has to do to match the two-time World Champion.

“For sure, in terms of just outright pace, he’s been more on top of it than me,” Stroll is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “He’s been quicker, and he’s been driving incredibly well.

“I don’t think we as a team have gotten the most out of our weekends. I think we haven’t shown some of our true results but there’s definitely some work to do, and some things to improve.

Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen dominated the first and only practice session of the Austrian Grand Prix, outperforming the Scuderia Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc in a busy hour of running at the Red Bull Ring.

After its debut in Azerbaijan earlier this season, Formula 1’s new look Sprint format with two separate qualifying sessions returns at the Spielberg circuit, promising an exciting weekend of racing with additional points and prizes up for grabs. The new 2023 Sprint schedule sees the drivers and teams have just the one practice session to prepare their cars for qualifying on Friday, followed by the Sprint Shootout and Sprint on Saturday, and finally then the usual traditional Grand Prix itself on Sunday.

With warm and dry conditions at the start of FP1, but a looming threat of rain for the rest of the weekend, everyone got to track quickly to try and see their potential and Lewis Hamilton was raising eyebrows, with some exceptional pace on the hard compound tyre outperforming the likes of Verstappen on the same compound.

Just over ten minutes into the session, Verstappen set the fastest time with a 1:06.598s on hard tires, narrowly ahead of Alonso on mediums and Hamilton, who trailed by an additional tenth of a second, also on hard tires. Sergio Pérez looked to be in better form following a poor Canadian Grand Prix and an illness that saw him miss his media obligations yesterday.

As the session progressed, there were several improvements on mediums and hards, including a 1:06.416s lap by Hamilton that put him in the lead for a large chunk of the session. However, a flurry of runs on soft tyres towards the end mixed up the timesheets and created a new running order.

Iván Axell Martín is one of the top rally raiders on two wheels in South American competition today, having won the South American Rally Race and CaNav M2 championship. In August, he will be there when the World Rally-Raid Championship visits his native Argentina for the first time with the Desafío Ruta 40.

2022 was a banner year for Martín, who won the SARR in the M2 motorcycle category in rainy conditions followed by the CaNav M2 title; CaNav, or the Campeonato Argentino de Rally y Navegación, is the domestic cross-country rally series in Argentina. For the 2023 SARR, he moved up to M1 but retired after crashing and hurting his hand in the first stage.

After the DR40, he plans to race the International Six Days Enduro. Considered one of the top off-road motorcycle races in the world, the ISDE will be held in San Juan, Argentina, in November.

Off track, he is a cardiologist who has lived in Cipolletti since 2004.

The Desafío Ruta 40 is the fourth of fifth rounds on the 2023 W2RC calendar, returning after a four-year hiatus. The race will begin on 28 August and run through 1 September.

Iván Merichal Resina hopes to compete at the Dakar Rally in 2024, but making the trip to Saudi Arabia to run approximately five thousand kilometres in the desert is obviously not the most environmentally friendly activity. As such, Merichal has launched a tree-planting campaign to offset the carbon footprint that his Dakar effort will produce.

According to Merichal, his individual Dakar programme will generate roughly 7.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide from travelling for training, to Saudi Arabia, between stops, and transporting his bike, as well as racing for two weeks. This is especially exacerbated as internal combustion engines in race vehicles produce CO2.

“For fifteen days a year, the world is watching the Dakar and we cannot forget that it is an enormous privilege to be there,” said Merichal. “For me, it is a moral obligation to do things that have a positive impact on the environment while also fighting many teams and people to get involved. I alone cannot achieve it, but I have to return this help in some way and for me it is this: in my direct environment through Enki and to the environment with the planting of trees.

“Motorsport is no stranger to environmental awareness. Above being a racer, I am a lover of nature. Although it is not possible today to do a Dakar on a motorcycle with a non-combustion engine, we can do something and this is my small contribution.”

Merichal’s campaign is based on Treedom, a platform that allows users to plant trees in various parts of the world on behalf of the campaign operator. As of this article’s publication, thirteen trees have been planted by Treedom users for Merichal’s effort in Cameroon, Colombia, and Ghana.

McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris comes into the Austrian Grand Prix after a solid showing of pace in Canada, though he did not score any points due to his five-second penalty for driving too slowly behind a safety car– noted by the stewards as “unsportsmanlike conduct” done to ensure a successful double-stack in the pits. 

Norris crossed the line in ninth, but ended up dropping back to thirteenth after the penalty was applied. In spite of this, Norris had positives to take away from Canada, considering the team’s pace and proximity to the points positions through the weekend. 

In the week off from racing, the British driver said that he has been preparing to take on the Red Bull Ring at the McLaren Technology Centre through simulator work. 

“The Canadian GP was a difficult but fun weekend. There was some good overtaking, and we were able to fight for points on-track. Since then, I’ve been back at the MTC and in the sim this week to prepare for Austria.”

The Red Bull Ring holds significance for Norris, with him achieving his first podium result at the venue– a third place finish in 2020. Along with the sprint weekend set-up, which offers more opportunities to score points and come through the field, Norris said that this weekend is a “promising” one. 

Valtteri Bottas is hoping that Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake can continue to challenge in and around the top ten at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix after making good progress in Canada last time out.

The Finnish driver has previously done well around the Red Bull Ring, especially during his time as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate at Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. During his time with The Silver Arrows, Austria was one of his best weekends of the year, scoring his first podium and winning twice there. Winning the race and scoring podiums won’t be in Bottas’ head this weekend though, as he is hoping to score more points for Alfa Romeo, who sit seventh in the Constructors Championship just ahead of Williams Racing.

“The top ten finish the team achieved in Canada made us even more motivated. Our objective is to keep up with our good form and extend our points streak. Throughout my career, I have always enjoyed racing here in Spielberg: I have scored some good results here – including my first podium and two wins.”

Bottas spoke about the sprint format and how important it will be to come out firing tomorrow with only one practice session available for the teams and the drivers to make the necessary set up changes to their cars.

“With the Sprint event format, and less practice time on track, it will be important to get the feeling right with the car from the very start and build on that, especially when it comes to qualifying. We know we have the potential to do well, and if we keep doing our job, we will remain in the battle for the top ten.”

Alex Albon comes into the Austrian Grand Prix full of confidence following an impressive race in Canada which saw him finish seventh, his highest finish for Williams Racing.

Albon is hoping he can take momentum from the last race weekend into Austria and score back-to-back points for the first time this season. Albon is no stranger to the Red Bull Ring having raced at the circuit four times in total. The first three times were with Oracle Red Bull Racing and most recently with Williams last season, despite only finishing in the points once, he has good pace around the circuit and almost secured a podium in 2020, but an incident with Lewis Hamilton saw him finish fourth.

Albon has said that he and Williams will be aiming for more points this weekend and with the sprint weekend, anything is possible.

“I’m looking forward to Austria after coming off the back of a great weekend in Canada. This track is another one that should suit our car more than some other circuits. With this format being a sprint weekend, coupled with the rain, it’s all to play for. We’re going to be aiming for points so let’s work to try make that happen.”

Logan Sargeant: Sprint Format “offers more opportunities”

Logan Sargeant was in good spirits as he previewed the sprint weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix, which he thinks will offer more opportunities to score his first points of the season.

Frédéric Vasseur says it is important for Scuderia Ferrari to have a straightforward Austrian Grand Prix weekend if they want to bring home good results during Saturdays sprint race and Sunday’s main race at the Red Bull Ring.

After updates brought to the SF23 helped the team take fourth and fifth place in the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago, Vasseur, the Team Principal at Ferrari, hopes they can make further progress with the car in Austria as they look to take the fight to the teams directly ahead of them in the Constructors’ Championship.

The Maranello-based team currently sit fourth in the standings, thirty two points behind the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team in third place, and a further thirteen points behind the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team in second.

Vasseur says that the sprint race weekend format means they need to arrive at the track with some kind of idea about the ideal set-up needed to be competitive, particularly with only one free practice session prior to the Qualifying session on Friday afternoon.

“After Canada, we now return to complete the European leg of the season taking in some of the classic venues on the calendar, starting with back-to-back races in Austria and England,” said Vasseur.

Charles Leclerc is looking at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix to check whether the updates brought to the Canadian Grand Prix are working as expected on a different kind of track compared to two weeks ago.

Scuderia Ferrari had a strong looking weekend at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with Leclerc climbing from tenth on the grid to finish fourth, and Leclerc hopes they can continue their upturn in pace at the Red Bull Ring.

And Leclerc wants Ferrari to be able to fight with the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team for best of the rest behind Oracle Red Bull Racing.

“First of all, we want to check, at a different track to Canada, the progress we saw there, where we were able to count on a car that performed consistently in the race,” said Leclerc.  

“If we can confirm the step forward we took in Montreal, then we can race on a regular basis against Aston Martin and Mercedes, which would already be an important step, given that so far this season we have usually had to defend.