2022 Austrian GP Preview: F1 Gears Up For Second Sprint Race Of The Season

July 2022 is a busy month for Formula 1, as there are 4 races scheduled in the span of 5 weeks before the sport stops for a 3 week summer break. This week however is going to be even busier one, as F1 Sprint makes a return. For those of you unaware about the format, Friday will have Free Practice 1 followed by Qualifying - will set the grid for the Sprint race - later in the day, Saturday will begin with Free Practice 2 and will have the Sprint race in the evening, the finishing order of which will set the final grid for Sunday's main race. This schedule gives the team much less time to prepare for qualifying, and could throw a curveball in the order as teams may or may not have figured out their final setups, leading to some dramatic action in the 100 km (1/3rd distance of Grand Prix) Sprint race.

Max Verstappen undoubtedly enters the weekend as a favourite. Austria being close to Netherlands always results in a lot of Dutch fans in the grandstands for the Austrian GP, giving him a semi-home advantage. To add to that, the Austrian GP is held at the Red Bull Ring, a race track owned by Red Bull, making it the team's semi-home race too, as the brand is based out of Austria, but the team has its base in the UK. Max Verstappen is in an incredible form, and is leading the World Championship by a significant 34 points over teammate Perez and 43 points over Ferrari's Leclerc. He was also leading the British GP last weekend until he ran over a piece of debris that came out of an AlphaTauri car, which got stuck in the floor of the car dropping his pace. He managed to finish that GP in P7, battling Mick Schumacher to the line.

Charles Leclerc has had an ample amount of bad luck in the last few races. The Monegasque has scored 6 Pole Positions in the 10 rounds this season, but has only won 2 races, owing to a series of unfortunate races. Despite a poor start to the season, Carlos Sainz has caught up with Leclerc in the championship now, and is only 11 points behind him, having won the British GP last weekend from pole, both of which were career first for him. There was clear tension in the Scuderia Ferrari camp after the British GP though, as Leclerc wasn't let through in the initial stages of the race despite having better pace, and when he was leading towards the end of the race and the safety car came out, Ferrari didn't react fast enough to bring him in for a stop, costing him the win and the podium. Team Principal Mattia Binotto was seen having an intense conversation with Leclerc post race, and he barely celebrated Sainz's first win.

Another team that has had a change of pace is Mercedes. With several updates brought to the car, Mercedes' drivers reported no porpoising or bouncing on the Silverstone circuit. While this may return on some tracks, Red Bull Ring has a pretty even surface with only few corners, most of which are high speed, meaning they could be fast here too. Though Russel had an opening lap crash in Silverstone which broke his streak of top 5 finishes that started in the first race of this season, Lewis Hamilton had the pace to win his home GP, and ended up scoring a podium. The 8-time World Constructor's Champion team will be determined to make up lost ground here on, and it will be interesting to see if they can join the title race with the season approaching its halfway mark this weekend.

Apart from AlphaTauri, every team brought an upgrade to their cars in the British GP. With the catastrophic crash in the first corner of the first lap of the British GP, many cars retired, and some others were running damage throughout the race. So it is uncertain as to which teams have improved to what extent, and it will be interesting to see how that unwraps this weekend. One team to especially look out for would be Williams. The Williams car got the most number of updates in Silverstone, but they were fitted only to Albon's car due to the lack of availability of spares. Albon had an unfortunate exit in Q1 in qualifying, and the crash in the British GP resulted in him having to be taken to the hospital. He was thankfully alright, and will look to put his updated Williams to good use this weekend. Due to his crash and damages, Latifi won't get the updates this season either, but barring any damages this weekend, he should have an updated car in time for the French GP 2 weeks later. 

2022 F1 Round 11 Austrian GP Weekend Schedule:

2022 F1 World Driver's Championship Standings After Round 10 - British GP:

2022 F1 World Constructor's Championship Standings After Round 10 - British GP