What a Demonstration of the world champion: With around 1.2 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen (Red Bull) secured Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) on Saturday in the rain from Spielberg in Pole Position for the Grand Prix of Styria, this Sunday (Start: 15:10 PM/ F. A. Z.-liveticker Formel 1, RTL and Sky). “I love days like this,” said Hamilton: “The race to feel again, how it should feel.” It is the first Pole Position this season for him and the 89. in his career.

Michael Wittershagen

Responsible for the Sport in the Frankfurt General Sunday newspaper.

F. A. Z.

it was noted how happy he was over this afternoon, after him, in the season opener at the same place a week ago, only a place remained. As a third-party qualified Carlos Sainz jr (McLaren), claimed to be just ahead of Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes), who won the first Grand Prix. Hamilton once again proved his qualities on a wet track. In the Dry, in the two practice sessions on Friday, he had – unlike team-mate Bottas – still having problems with the tuning of his race car.

three-quarters of an hour too late

The rain had set the route so much under water that the qualifying session could only begin with a three-quarter hour delay. The third Training at lunch time was even out. “Austria is the weather, always a challenging course,” said formula 1 sports boss Ross Brawn. The weather brought the current hierarchy in formula 1 in a mess, with one exception: the Ferrari is currently in the Dry and in the Wet just average.

Sebastian Vettel managed to be the first small victory in this season. At the end of the second section of qualifying, he battled his team-mate Charles Leclerc to the last place for the finals on Saturday. The German ultimately had the nose in front, he finished tenth at the end. For the Monegasques only place eleven remained. “It has actually been a lot of fun today,” said Vettel, “But it is a lot of taken a long time, until the tires came up to temperature. We were not fast enough – the others were better.“ His gap to Hamilton amounted to almost 2.4 seconds.