Austrian GP: Saturday Recap

Quick Hit: Logan finished P17 in the Sprint race; Alex finished P18 after starting from the pit lane. In Grand Prix qualifying, both cars were knocked out in Q1. Logan will start P19 and Alex will start P16 tomorrow.

Formula 1

Saturday’s Sprint was a very clean affair that featured some brilliant racing up front between Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, and Oscar Piastri.

To take a look at Williams, we’ll head to the duller end of the field; Alex started from the pit lane as the team took the opportunity to make changes to his setup. Logan started in P15 and over 23 laps, Alex caught up to his teammate, overtaking both dreadful Sauber cars on the way.

He would finish in P18, right behind Logan in a largely anonymous race for the team where there was never any chance of points.

Having taken the opportunity to make setup changes on Alex’s car, I was curious about what would happen in qualifying later in the day and in the early stages, things looked somewhat positive. Alex was P10 before his final Q1 run but the field improved enough and he didn’t - he bowed out in the first qualifying session and is set to start the race tomorrow in P16. 

Logan was never on it, ending up in P19.

It’s incredibly difficult to imagine much good coming from these positions during the Grand Prix - even at a track where overtaking should be aided by three DRS zones, trains can develop easily and a race in the midfield can switch from spicy to standard at the drop of a hat.

Williams says their focus is on the future and that better be the case. Should this form continue, it may be a grueling second half of the season.

Formula 2

Better news in the Williams Driver Academy, right? Right? RIGHT?

Franco Colapinto was having a very good race in the F2 sprint race, finding himself in P5 on the last lap when a…situation?....developed between him and his MP Motorsport teammate, Dennis Hauger. The drivers entered one of the Red Bull Ring’s heavy braking zones wheel-to-wheel and Franco was a bit naughty in driving Hauger wide. 

They came out of the corner side by side and Franco suddenly spun.

It seemed like there must have been contact but after seeing a few replays, I don’t think there was. Perhaps another angle shows something I missed but it seems like Franco just put the power down a little too hastily. 

A P5 finish evaporated and he was out of the points.

His fellow F2 Williams Academy driver, Zak O’Sullivan, was in P10 on the final lap and benefitted from Franco’s error, moving up one additional place to take P9 and the two points on offer.

Formula 3

Luke Browning took pole in yesterday’s qualifying session which set the grid for Sunday’s feature race. After the session, he was assessed a three-place grid penalty for impeding to be applied to the next race, which is rather lucky as it protects his feature race pole position.

He was demoted from 12th in the sprint race (top 12 qualifiers for the feature race are reversed for the Saturday sprint race) to 15th and nearly clawed his way back into the points, finishing P11. 

Luke has yet to score points in a sprint race this season but he’s only five points behind the championship leader, Leonardo Fornaroli. There’s a good opportunity for him to lead the championship after tomorrow’s feature.

That’s all for today. We’re back on it tomorrow.