Ominous warning for Red Bull’s rivals with ‘Sunday set-up’ mooted

Max Verstappen leads off the line in the Austrian GP sprint

Max Verstappen clinched pole position by an incredible four tenths at the Red Bull Ring but more concerning for his rivals will be Helmut Marko’s claim the RB20 was set-up for “Sunday’s race”.

Verstappen was in a class of his own in Saturday’s qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix as he set the pace in Q1, which was the closest-ever qualifying session with 0.798s separating the 20 drivers, went quicker in Q2 and then laid down a 1:04.314 in the pole position shoot-out.

Helmut Marko’s warning to Red Bull’s rivals

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Taking pole position by 0.4s ahead of Lando Norris, the Dutchman’s rivals were amazed by his “insane” pace as Lewis Hamilton put it.

However, Saturday could be just the start with Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko revealing Red Bull’s main focus has been on race pace.

“I am hugely surprised by this difference [in qualifying],” he told De Telegraaf. “Four-tenths on this track, that means a second difference on a circuit like Spa-Francorchamps, or maybe more.

“And in the set-up, we were focusing mainly on Sunday’s race. The car worked from the first lap on Friday. That helped us tremendously.

“We thought it would be about thousandths of a second here. Four-tenths, that’s incredibly impressive.”

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Red Bull rivals concede Max Verstappen is ‘down the road’

It has Norris declaring Red Bull, and most notably Verstappen, are a “pretty good step ahead” of McLaren. The Briton will line up second on the Red Bull Ring grid on Sunday in a repeat of Saturday’s sprint front row.

But while both Norris and Oscar Piastri harried Verstappen in the early laps of the sprint, Norris admits whatever Verstappen found in qualifying is likely to carry over into the Grand Prix.

Asked what his plan is for Sunday’s race, he replied: “Kind of the same, but not! Yeah, just tidying up a few things from before. Yeah, I know what I did wrong, it was obviously very clear.

“But from the pace advantage Max had today, that’s probably going to carry into something tomorrow as well. They were just a pretty good step ahead of us. So we’ll see.

“It’s another day. Things can change and conditions are going to be very warm again. So the races have been good to us lately. It’s been one of our strengths relative to qualifying. So excited to see what we can do.”

George Russell, third on the grid, agrees Verstappen’s rivals will have a hard time beating the reigning World Champion in Sunday’s 71-lap Grand Prix.

“I think Lando and Oscar seem a little bit quicker than us,” he said. “Obviously Max is down the road at the moment.

“I don’t know where Oscar ended up finishing, but I’m confident Lewis and I can probably beat the Ferraris and hopefully hold up Oscar’s progress.”

However, he ruled out repeating his Spanish GP heroics with a sweeping pass on Verstappen and Norris through Turn 1.

“No, I think it’s a bit more challenging here,” he said. “I think these guys always get their elbows out. So maybe this time it’s sit back and watch it all take place.

“But no, I think last week I lost a lot of time battling with Lando and probably focused too much on the guys ahead of me and ultimately that cost me the position to Lewis and almost with Charles as well. I think the race is behind us.”

One of those drivers behind hoping to make up positions is Charles Leclerc.

The Ferrari driver qualified down in sixth place with a mistake at Turn 4 on his final flying lap costing him valuable tenths.

“Compared to Max and the McLaren, I think we are,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com when asked if Ferrari are behind this weekend. “We are quite far this weekend.

“In qualifying with the McLaren, I don’t think we’re that far. In the race, I would expect them to have the upper hand.”

He added: “Top three is optimistic but realistic.”