2 days Ago By Pablo Hidalgo
After a single practice session, the teams are already preparing for action at the Austrian Grand Prix 2024. With the new parc-fermé regulations for Sprint weekends, such as this weekend’s at the Red Bull Ring, teams will not be able to modify their cars until the end of the sprint race on Saturday afternoon. Therefore, what we saw in Friday’s single practice session may be a good indication of what today’s sprint qualifying will bring.
Another intense battle for Pole with Verstappen ‘favourite’ status Despite a small apparent electronic problem with his engine when changing the differential distribution, the Red Bull driver is feeling extremely comfortable in Austria. Unlike some of the free practice sessions of the last few grands prix, there hasn’t been a single complaint about his car’s set-up. The FP times and qualifying results this season support this feeling.
However, it won’t be a pole decided by three tenths of a second as the gap to Oscar Piastri at the end of the FP reflects. It will be, as in recent circuits, a pole that will be decided by thousandths of a second and fought until the last one of them. Norris, before going long at Turn 4, did a very strong Sector 1 and is, together with Max, the other great candidate for the sprint pole.
The Italian team seems to be a step behind its competitors. The mechanics have had to work on modifying the set-up of Charles Leclerc’s car on a couple of occasions. And the pace doesn’t seem to be there to p.
