Red Bull rolls on home soil in Austria

Max Verstappen wants you to know that this is all harder than it looks.

Verstappen will start from pole position in the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday. This is not surprising. Verstappen, the two-time Formula 1 champion, has started from pole in six of the nine races of the season. He won six. Goes faster than everyone else is what Max Verstappen does.

But Verstappen doesn’t like anything or anyone holding him back. So he grumbled on Friday after race officials scrapped dozens of the fastest laps in qualifying because drivers had slipped outside the strictly defined race area. And he grumbled again on Saturday after poor visibility hit his teammate, Sergio Pérez. briefly push it onto the grass during a rainy sprint race.

“I think it looked very stupid today”, Verstappen said of Friday’s qualifying problems. “It almost seemed like we were amateurs given the number of laps that were dropped.”

“People will say, ‘You should have kept the car within the white lines,'” he added. “If it were that easy, you could grab my car and try it.”

How to watch

Time: The Austrian Grand Prix starts at 9 a.m. Eastern time. (Worldwide start times are here.)

TV: The race will be broadcast on ESPN in the United States. Streaming is available on ESPN+. Prerace coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. Not in the United States? A complete list of Formula 1 channels can be found here.

Sunday starting grid

Verstappen, the courageous Dutch underdog, will start from pole position for the fourth race in a row. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will be excited about starting in positions 2 and 3, but not nearly as much as Lando Norris and McLaren will start fourth.

Sergio Pérez’s battle continued though, starting 15th after some of his best qualifying lap times cleared for not staying on the grid.

This week’s storylines

Sour grapes? When Lewis Hamilton suggested in an interview with Sky Sports this week that the sport’s leaders should change the rules to allow other teams to close the design and performance gap on Red Bull, or at least prevent Red Bull from getting ahead of a new (and possibly even faster) car for next week’s season he got a quick reprimand from Verstappen. “Many things in life are unfair,” said Verstappen curtly. He later commented in his response to Sky that Hamilton was less concerned about competitive imbalances when his Mercedes team won seven drivers’ championships in a row.

Rail. The Red Bull Ring has a reputation for being a fast circuit, with long sections built to reward straight-line speed – an area where Red Bull’s cars have had a significant advantage all year. But it also has some of the biggest elevation changes in Formula 1, and those rises and falls can affect a car’s grip on the track. Want a real-world comparison? Think about that split second when you’re driving a car and it’s going over an unexpected rise at high speed. Now think about doing that at 200 miles per hour and with a turn ahead. In the rain.

Weather Rain almost made a mess of the sprint race on Saturday, especially at the start, and there is a chance of more in the forecast for Sunday. That affects tire choices and pit strategies – one stop? or two? – and maybe even the outcome.

What they say

• “We didn’t talk about that when he won everything.” — Verstappenin response to Hamilton’s suggestion that Formula 1 make rule changes to limit Red Bull’s dominance.

• “It feels good to finally have a clean qualifying again and be back on the front row. The feeling has been a bit better in the last few races.” — Leclercin position to change Ferrari’s luck.

• “Two Red Bulls out of the way would be a good way to achieve that.” — Fernando Alonsoabout what it takes to win in Formula 1 today.

• ‘I haven’t lost it, you know. You don’t go from winning races to suddenly being a really bad driver.” — Perezafter having what has been a rarity for him lately – a great day – by finishing second in the sprint race on Saturday.

Last Time Out: Canadian Grand Prix

If someone stops you in the street and asks who won the Formula 1 race, your safest answer remains: ‘Max Verstappen’.