Valtteri Bottas’ difficulties continued at the Spielberg track, when he was 19th in the sprint.
STT Sports,
Riku Porvari
Leading the Formula One World Championship Max Verstappen drove from the pole position to victory in the Austrian GP sprint race. Red Bull’s No. 1 driver Verstappen defeated the second-placed McLaren Oscar Piastri with 4.6 seconds. Lando Norris completed a great result for McLaren in third place.
Mercedes George Russell was fourth, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Fifth and Mercedes Lewis Hamilton sixth.
The three-time champion of the World Series, Verstappen, has won all three sprint races of the season and has already taken a total of five consecutive victories in F1 sprints. Verstappen leads the World Series by 71 points over Norris before Sunday’s race.
Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas the difficulties continued on Spielberg’s track, as the Finn fell one place in the race to 19th. So Bottas was second to last, followed by a teammate Zhou Guanyu.
Qualifying for the Austrian GP starts at 17:00.
The start of the sprint race was interrupted because the photographers were standing too close to the fence at the first corner of the track. The drivers were sent to an extra warm-up lap, which shortened the sprint race by a lap, i.e. the track was circled 23 times.