F1 CorrespondentPublished23 minutes agoQuick thinking, experience and a "magic lap" came together to produce an unexpected pole position for George Russell at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Many questions were raised by the events that immediately followed Max Verstappen's crash at Turn Nine on his final lap at the end of qualifying - but Russell's response to it was not one of them.
The Briton, who needs a bit of luck after a troubled season so far, reacted correctly to the yellow flag zone and he leapfrogged the two Ferraris onto pole, when his team-mate Kimi Antonelli slowed down too much, and the time he set on his first lap was good enough only for fourth.
Russell's judgement, to lift off just enough to satisfy the rules, but not so much that it wrecked his lap, was the difference between taking a much-needed pole and being fourth on the grid.
The wider questions will continue, though. Why was only a single yellow waved initially when Verstappen spun across the gravel trap and hit the wall at the fastest corner on the track, taken at nearly 140mph?
Why did it take 20 seconds for race control to decide it really should have been a double yellow - by which time everyone had already completed their laps?
But in the circumstances that prevailed, it was Russell who read them correctly.
Russell claims controversial pole after Verstappen crash
But he found a groove in the third session, second fastest by just 0.043secs and then nailing a beauty of a final lap.
"It's one of those, when you nail Turn One and you go through fast, but the car doesn't slide, it keeps the [tyre] temperatures a little bit down, so the tyres are cooler approaching the next turn, and then you have more grip, you go through there faster, and the tyres are cooler once again," Russell said.
"It's this sort of upward spiral. And equally, if you have a bad Turn One, you're on this downward spiral. It just clicked. It's just one of those magic laps and I'm just so pleased, because it's been a real tough run for me."
Russell fell to 68 points behind Antonelli in the championship after Monaco at the beginning of this month, where a penalty he should never have received dropped him from third to 12th.
That followed his retirement from the lead in Canada, struggles for pace in Miami, and circumstances going against him in a couple of races early in the season.
The only good luck he has had was at the last race in Spain when Antonelli retired having just passed Russell for second place behind Lewis Hamilton's winning Ferrari.
Antonelli admitted on Saturday that even if he had not bailed on his lap when he did not need to - having mistakenly thought he saw double waved yellow flags rather than the single yellows that were actually in place - he would not have beaten Russell's time.
"It would have been very close with George," the Italian said. "He would have been a little bit ahead but it would have been front row."
This time, Russell had him covered, but he was not sure why.
"The lap was unbelievable," Russell said." And then obviously I got that yellow flag, the single yellow in the last sector, but I did a hundred-metre lift, lost a huge amount of time and still, you know… I don't know. I don't have the answer.
"For sure I'll be looking with my team where it came from, but it felt very sweet."
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The key for Russell now is to convert it into a win - which, remarkably, would be his first since the opening race of the season in Australia. Russell is still 50 points behind Antonelli in the championship and really needs a win on Sunday.
This pole, he said, gave him confidence that it would come good in the end,
"Last year every lap, every session, just had the confidence in the car to just push it to the limit and know exactly what it was going to do," Russell said.
"And I think for Charles, one of the best, definitely, qualifiers on the grid, was the same. And for both of us, it has been challenging a lot at times [this year].
"But we haven't just forgotten how to drive. And there is definitely an element of understanding what this car needs, what these tyres need in different conditions.
"Kimi has just done an amazing job day in, day out. Do I have the confidence I can beat him? Yeah, 100%. I just need to get that click, as I found again today, as I had in Barcelona, as I had in Canada, as I had in Melbourne, as I showed in China, and then the results will come at some point in the races."
As for the choice of flags at Turn Nine, Russell said: "I didn't even see the car because the run-off is so far. And I think in that instance, a single yellow was correct because a double yellow is immediate danger.
"You're never going, you know, lifting a hundred metres before a corner or lifting off with a single yellow. You're never going to lose control of the car.
"Verstappen, the only reason he was in the wall that far away is because he was attacking and lost the car.
"So I think the single yellow was correct. I think I did everything right to be very much under control, and it's a very different story to a double."
Predicting the race after such a a qualifying session is especially difficult.
Mercedes will go in as favourites, and there are two cars from them and Ferrari in the mix to play with strategy should either team wish.
But it looks unusually open. McLaren qualified only sixth and seventh, Lando Norris ahead of Oscar Piastri, but Norris looked if anything competitive with Mercedes on the race-simulation runs in Friday practice.
Verstappen, had he not crashed, looked a contender for the front row. He and Red Bull have questions about whether their race pace is a match for their one-lap speed, but they have a big upgrade this weekend, which could change that.
"We are a little bit behind Mercedes at least," Verstappen said. "In Barcelona it was quite close-ish in qualifying but we were lacking in the race cos that's still our weak point and that's what we want to see, whether we have any kind of improvement in race pace."
Ferrari, meanwhile, despite their engine upgrade this weekend, have not looked a threat to Mercedes.
"This weekend we've not been confident that we could fight for a win," said Hamilton.
"These guys have been 0.6secs quicker than us most of the weekend. We closed the gap overnight 0.3secs, but we still are 0.3secs down today, or two-and-a-bit tenths down today.
"It's going to be very tough to challenge them tomorrow, but with a long run down to Turn Three, hopefully together we can."
