Austrian Grand Prix: Qualifying Recap

Qualifying got underway at 16:00 local around the 4.326-kilometer (2.688-mile), 10-turn Red Bull Ring – with both drivers safely navigating their VF-26s through the first session. Utilizing two sets of Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires, Bearman’s first attempt proved his quickest, a 1:08.061 for P14 on the timesheets, with teammate Ocon progressing through to Q2 courtesy of a 1:08.231, for P16.

The second phase of knockout qualifying began on used softs before the duo improved their times on a fresh set of red tires – Bearman recording a 1:07.523 to place P13 with Ocon classifying P15 at the checkered flag, posting a 1:07.817.

Up front, George Russell placed his Mercedes on pole (1:06.113) ahead of the Ferrari pairing of Charles Leclerc (1:06.349) and Lewis Hamilton (1:06.408).

Ollie Bearman:

“On one hand, I’m happy with my performance as I did a great lap in Q1, and I felt like I did the same in Q2. I don’t think there was much more left in the car, and that’s a satisfying feeling for a driver, but my bigger feeling is one of disappointment. In the last five races, this is the best feeling I've had in the car with how it drives, yet our competitiveness is still the same. I always go into qualifying thinking that if everything goes well, and I do a mega lap, I can make some type of miracle happen and get into Q3, but today we showed that despite all of that, we were nowhere near.”

Esteban Ocon:

“It was a very good lap to get into Q2 after the team put in an amazing effort to change many parts on the car overnight. We're still struggling with a few issues that we need to look into, as we don't really know why that's the case, so we need to investigate it further. I hope it won't give us a hard time in the race tomorrow, but I trust the team to fix it as soon as possible, as it's been quite difficult out there.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“I think operationally, like yesterday, we did a good job trackside. Ollie’s lap in Q2, that’s about all we had today. The team has done a good job on the set-up, and Ollie’s done a good job in getting everything out of the car, with Esteban very close as well. It’s good that we got everything out of the car, but P13 and P15 are not where we want to be. Our competitors have improved their cars, so we must improve ours as well. The positive is we were good operationally, and that has been a focus for us, but we need to improve the baseline speed of the car.”