Max Verstappen maintained his 100% sprint race season record and then ended a three-race pole position drought in a "demonstration of power" at the Austrian Grand Prix home event of team owners Red Bull on Saturday.
The triple world champion won the sprint from pole as he was able to counter a passing move from Lando Norris in lap five by retaking the lead in the next turn. He never looked back again to win by more than four seconds from the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Norris.
Three hours later he also dominated qualifying for Sunday's grand prix by finishing more than four-tenths ahead of Norris, with Mercedes' George Russell third on the grid after Piastri had his best lap scrapped for a track limit violation.
Verstappen now has eight poles for the season and 40 overall after missing out on first place on the grid at the last three events.
A statement and demonstration of power
"The team has been working really hard to make the car more competitive and I think this is a great statement," Verstappen said.
Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko labelled Verstappen's performance "a demonstration of power" and Norris conceding that "Max was in a league of his own."
Norris added: "We’re going to need something extra to beat the pace of Max and the Red Bulls."
Verstappen said that "hopefully we can of course also show that [the pace] tomorrow in the race."
Verstappen in control again
Having not looked as dominant as last season earlier this year, Verstappen has pulled away in the standings again after winning the last two races in Canada and Spain despite the growing McLaren threat.
He leads Norris by 71 points in the championship after the success in what he called "a spicy" sprint race.
The initial start was aborted, reportedly over safety concerns around the positioning of photographers at turn one, which reduced the sprint to 23 laps due to another formation lap.
Verstappen then had a superb start while Norris had to defend himself against Piastri, and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz got past Russell into fourth.
Norris stormed into the lead in lap five but Verstappen countered immediately on the inside at the next turn, and Piastri used the moment to sneak past Norris as well from the outside a few seconds later.
Verstappen coasted home 4.6 seconds ahead of Piastri while Russell reclaimed fourth from Sainz, with Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes sixth ahead of Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari, up three from 10th on the grid.
Dominance in qualifying
Verstappen added: "A few exciting battles as well but once we cleared the DRS, I could do my own race and it was better. You could see they had two cars pushing flat-out trying to make it difficult for me."
Piastri said he made the most of the duel between Verstappen and Norris but that he "just didn’t quite have the pace in the second half" of the race.
Verstappen then clocked 1 minute 4.314 seconds on the 4.318-kilometre Red Bull Ring for the grand prix pole, with Norris a distant second, .404 back.
Piastri had to settle for seventh after what he called an "embarrassing" track limit mistake, and Leclerc was sixth behind Sainz and Hamilton after not managing a clean lap in the end.