What the Austin sprint race and qualifying tells us about the 2024 F1 ...

As he returned to winning ways in Formula 1’s 2024 United States Grand Prix sprint race, and was on course for proper pole at Austin, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is the heavy favourite to score a fourth consecutive GP triumph here.

But, thanks to George Russell’s late Q3 crash, Verstappen’s title rival Lando Norris starts on pole for McLaren after producing “the best [lap] of my career” on what turned out to be the critical first runs in Q3.

However, it’s at Ferrari where the data indicates Verstappen’s most likely threat will come.As we’ll show, the Scuderia isn’t just pleased to be in contention at a “normal” track, as Carlos Sainz put it in the post-qualifying press conference. It thinks it can win on Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas.

The qualifying ‘what ifs’ for Verstappen and Sainz

Russell’s wild crash at the penultimate corner on the final Q3 runs stopped any improvements, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest Verstappen was set to topple Norris for pole on Saturday evening had that not happened.

First, Norris insisted "I kind of set the bar too high because, on my second lap, I was like, 'guys, I don't think I'm going to improve much here'". This combines with how Verstappen was up by 0.172 seconds in sector one on their uncompleted laps.

But Norris had been a whopping 0.5s quicker in sector two on the first runs compared to Verstappen, so it may have been a closer run thing.

Russell's crash masked the true picture from emerging in qualifying

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Sainz too was somewhat ruing Russell’s crash, as he was “coming with a very fast lap” when the yellow flags appeared. “To be in the ballpark with these two guys, whether to beat them or not, I don't know,” he added. “But, to be in the ballpark, it's a bit of a shame.”

Sainz had indeed just gone only 0.151s slower than Verstappen through sector one with a personal best, but critically matched what Norris had achieved on his pole lap in sector one. Sainz later wondered if “it was a lower track temp” that made “the car come alive”.

Given how the McLarens had struggled to stop their rear tyres overheating in sector three – where Verstappen was able to pull away from Norris during their mid-sprint chase as his RB20 has the balance to allow him to “drive to what the car allows” – the falling temperatures as dusk rolled in would’ve boosted the MCL38s too.

The RB20 looked so compliant it appeared to be back to its F1-dominating best from early in 2024

But Norris nevertheless hailed how McLaren had “improved the car quite a bit” with its post-sprint set-up changes. This centres on how the team has “understood how to adapt to the wind”, per team principal Andrea Stella.

This was something that had left the Italian fearing Austin would be the track of the remaining six venues in the 2024 title run in where he had expected the MCL38 to “struggle most”.

Why Ferrari looks so strong in race trim, but must avoid its sprint friendly fire

Verstappen’s sprint victory was his first of any kind since he won the equivalent event at the Red Bull Ring back in June and it keeps up his undefeated streak of sprint wins this term. The RB20 looked so compliant it appeared to be back to its F1-dominating best from early in 2024.

Ferrari could provide Verstappen's sternest threat, provided its drivers don't delay each other

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

But the stopwatch tells a slightly different story – particularly on his margin of Austin sprint victory. This was just 3.9s yesterday, compared to 9.5s over Lewis Hamilton in the same sprint in 2023.

In the strong early Saturday heat afternoon this year, Verstappen produced a lap time average of 1m38.154s over the sprint’s last 14 tours. The reason for that count is because it’s the lap when Sainz finally got ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc to run third behind Norris.

The Ferrari drivers were battling savagely in the early stages of the sprint but weren’t dropped by the leaders. Instead, Sainz was able to then catch and pass Norris on the final lap – where the Briton was nearly jumped by Leclerc but for his canny Turn 15 defence. This was bizarrely investigated post-race by the stewards given it was so obvious Norris would have to block there.

Sainz’s average once he’d cleared Leclerc in the sprint came in a miniscule 0.009s down on Verstappen. Leclerc, following closely in fourth in the sprint, was only a further 0.032s slower each time (his average is missing the final lap after the battle with Norris). This is what is so encouraging for Ferrari’s prospects in the main event.

While Sainz insisted he didn’t “agree” with suggestions his battle with Leclerc had cost Ferrari the chance to chase down Verstappen in the sprint, there can be no denying how the Pirellis hate temperature spikes - such as the ones on the SF-24s would’ve got from their battling. A case in point comes from the Mercedes squad that had such a disaster in qualifying at COTA, with Hamilton knocked out in Q1 and so even offering up his upgraded parts to go on Russell’s repaired machine. “But we're not going to swap,” Russell added.

In the sprint, Russell himself looked to be a victory contender early on given how he scrapped with and saw off the Ferraris initially, and briefly challenged Norris at Turn 12. But he fell back to fifth and was 8.8s adrift of Leclerc by the finish. Hamilton was already well behind and facing the big gap to the Ferraris that his team-mate eventually fell into.

Mercedes drivers suffered in the sprint race after pushing their tyres too hard early on

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Mercedes insiders suggest this was a direct consequence of its drivers pushing too hard from the off on the mediums – for Russell in making his moves and later defending, for Hamilton in pushing just to keep up with the Ferrari drivers early on.

“The reality is that this weekend we're in the fight,” Sainz replied when Autosport asked how satisfied he and Ferrari are to be showing strongly on a very different track type to the Monza-Baku-Singapore run where it has historically shone in this rules era. “I couldn't say the same of Zandvoort and Spa – the last normal tracks we've been to. Good positive progress.”

But Leclerc went further after he’d qualified fourth, claiming “if we see the same race pace as [Saturday] morning, for sure the [GP] race win is possible”.

Although history and his determined nature suggest otherwise, the Dutchman could yet decide that discretion is the better part of valour

Yet there are two big obstacles in Ferrari’s path. Taking Norris first – his sprint lap time average came in at 1m38.351s, which is 0.2s slower than Verstappen’s headline pace. But he spent all race in dirty air and knows “I don't want to do it again” in terms of destroying his tyres. He said this was behind his sprint Turn 1 lock-up that let Sainz by to take second behind Verstappen.

But there were mitigating circumstances of sorts in how Norris’s mediums – like those on his Red Bull and Ferrari rivals – had been used in sprint qualifying. But his had done one extra lap on Friday night, which will have been a factor in the way they degraded as they did.

Clean air combined with that car set-up progress in dealing with the snaps coming from the strong wind means he may well be harder for Sainz and Leclerc to pass in the GP. Norris will also likely have to get aggressive at Turn 1 given how the uphill, sharp left-hander has had so much action in the past and Verstappen surely won’t be able to resist what could be a title-defining move for either contender if it results in contact.

It will be intriguing to see how Verstappen approaches the run to Turn 1 now he's starting behind Norris

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

But, although history and his determined nature suggest otherwise, the Dutchman could yet decide that discretion is the better part of valour. This is because his car has also changed since the sprint, which could well thwart Ferrari’s raised hopes.

Verstappen has been switched to one of Red Bull’s bigger rear wings, which explains that sector two, Q3 run one, time loss to Norris. Of this, Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said: “We went for race set-up.”

Inevitably, this race will come down to a tyre management contest on what is expected to be an even hotter day compared to Saturday – given a predicted lack of cloud in the skies south-east of Austin.

That will likely make things worse for Mercedes, with the W15s continuing to struggle in hotter conditions, but overall it makes a two-stopper pretty much nailed on as this combines with a relatively low pitstop time loss of 20s.

Given how much the hards were used in FP1 – to Pirelli’s surprise, nine of the 10 teams put their drivers on it in that session – a medium-hard-medium is predicted by Pirelli to be the most likely strategy for the frontrunners. But Autosport understands that many teams are relying on how in 2023 the best strategy was a medium-medium-hard approach. McLaren even reserved an extra set of hards and ended up deciding not to use them.

However, the major track resurfacing means lap times are around 2s faster and so it could be that there’s a tyre sting in the Texas sun for anyone expecting an exact replica to last year.

There are still plenty of unknowns heading into the main grand prix, even after Saturday's sprint

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images