Max Verstappen resists McLarens for 10th F1 sprint win in Austria
Max Verstappen makes it three sprint wins out of three in F1 2024 after holding off the McLarens.
Max Verstappen resisted a challenge from the McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to win the F1 Austrian Grand Prix sprint race.
The Red Bull driver came under attack from Norris and briefly lost the lead, but re-passed his rival and controlled the rest of Saturday’s 23-lap race.
Norris caught Verstappen napping with a bold, late lunge on the run to Turn 3 on Lap 5, but the reigning world champion reclaimed the lead with a dive to the inside at Turn 4.
Verstappen locked up completing the move and subsequently forced Norris to run wide, opening the door for teammate Piastri to capitalise and sneak by into second through the next sequence of corners.
From there, Verstappen steadily built a comfortable buffer en route to claiming his 10th win from the 14 sprint races that have been held since the introduction of the format in 2021. He has won all three sprint events this year.
Despite losing fourth place to Carlos Sainz on the first lap, Mercedes’ George Russell battled back past the Ferrari driver to reclaim the position.
Sainz managed to keep his 2025 replacement, Lewis Hamilton, behind in the closing stages to take fifth, while Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc was seventh.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez went backwards and could only finish eighth to claim the final point on offer.
