Austrian GP qualifying data: The two corners that make Max Verstappen unbeatable

Max Verstappen scored his first pole position since Imola and his eighth of the F1 2024 season after a dominant showing in Austrian GP qualifying

Not counting the sprint format, nobody has been able to stop the Dutchman in another driving exhibition at the Red Bull Ring.

The data behind Max Verstappen’s Austrian GP pole position

Verstappen was again on top in Austria. There was no stopping the world champion and the RB20 who were in impressive form. Even Lando Norris, who stood out from the rest, was not even close to match Verstappen’s one lap-pace today.

As we can see, although the McLaren has a slight advantage in the slow corners and better traction, the RB20 has better aerodynamic efficiency and at the end of the long straights it always has a higher top speed. But the real difference and where the real and important gap is found is in the medium and high speed corners.

Verstappen in Sector 2 is able to dive down the inside of turns 6 and 7 with much more speed and aggressiveness than Norris. And in the last two corners – Turn 9 and Turn 10 – of the Red Bull Ring, the Dutchman gets an advantage of more than two tenths of a second compared to Norris.

Verstappen’s confidence with the RB20 has been brutal, he had no rival in qualifying and in the final two corners he has been totally impeccable during the whole session.

If we look at the top speeds of the best qualifying laps, McLaren has dropped between 2 and 3 km/h of speed on the straights compared to the best laps of Norris and Oscar Piastri yesterday in sprint qualifying. In fact, they are in this respect, just only ahead of Pierre Gasly’s Alpine.

We can guess that McLaren has decided to penalise a bit in this matter in order to increase the downforce level and not to punish the tyres so much in the race as it happened in the sprint race. Oscar Piastri will have to come back tomorrow from P7, although if he has enough pace, he will be able to compensate for the lack of top speed with the DRS effect.

The Australian was P3 after his last Q3 attempt, but the stewards removed his lap for exceeding the track limits at the exit of turn 6.

P2 and P3 was a big advantage for McLaren heading the race tomorrow with this ‘supposed’ small setup change as Norris and Piastri could play with the DRS between them to open gap with the rest and try to go for Verstappen.

As for the ideal lap of each team, McLaren has not managed to put together the perfect lap in Q3.

Lando Norris was 0.126s off his best first sector achieved in the first attempt of Q3, although he did improve considerably in Sector 2 and very slightly in Sector 3. However, the MCL38 could have been pushed a little more to go below the four tenths of delta with respect to Red Bull.

Verstappen, for his part, pushed the RB20 to the limit in his final lap of Q3. He only lost seven thousandths of a second in Sector 2 of his last attempt compared to the first of Q3.

The reigning world champion has once again managed to do a truly insane performance.

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