Pole winner Verstappen warns rivals: "We have a great car!"

Red Bull's Max Verstappen was celebrating a hard won victory in Friday's qualifying session at Spielberg, pulling off a flying lap when it counted at the end of a red flag-disrupted final round.

Verstappen's final push lap clocked in at 1:04.984s, which was just 0.029s quicker than Charles Leclerc whose Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz was only half a tenth further back.

But Verstappen was looking ominously confident heading into Saturday's sprint race, warning his rivals that they had a "great car" for this weekend's events.

• Read also: Verstappen pips Leclerc and Sainz to Austria pole as both Mercedes crash

"It was a very tight qualifying and it’s a really challenging track to get everything right," Verstappen told the media in parc ferme after the end of the session.

"There are not that many corners but the corners you have are quite tricky and easy to make a mistake," he continued. “Also the track temperature was dropping, the wind was changing a little bit."

Verstappen admitted that things had been made even harder by two red flags in quick succession in Q3 - both caused by Mercedes cars crashing out - leaving the drivers with little time to make a final run.

“It was a very long wait, of course, between the two runs and that’s never great,” he said. “Once you’re in a rhythm, it’s nice to just keep on going."

Today's result means that Verstappen will start tomorrow's sprint race from the front row alongside Leclerc. It's the outcome of that 30-minute battle that will set the starting order for Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix.

"I was very happy with pole but I also know that tomorrow and Sunday [is when] you can get the points," he acknowledged. And his confidence certainly appeared sky-high heading into the rest of the weekend.

“Normally I’d say qualifying is not our strongest point," he said. B"ut I feel confident with the car we have.

"I just hope to have a clean turn one, a good getaway and from there onwards anything can happen," reiterating: “I think we have a great car."

Verstappen's team mate Sergio Perez is expected to start from fourth place on the grid, but faces an investigation into whether he breached track limits at turn 8 on his fastest lap at the end of Q2.

If the race stewards decide to delete the lap time in question, Perez will fall back to 11th place on tomorrow's sprint grid.

That could promote George Russell to fourth in his stead, but the Mercedes driver is also heading to the stewards office because he was seen crossing the 'live' track after triggering a red flag after his accident at turn 10.

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