Verstappen dominates short race in Austria

Max Verstappen's perfect weekend so far in Austria continued with a comfortable victory in the short qualifying race.

Verstappen got off to a good start from pole position and fended off Charles Leclerc at the first corner before holding off Carlos Sainz at turn three.

From there, the world champion put in a string of fast laps, opened a safe gap, and secured his second short race win of the season.

Leclerc came in second after a close battle with Sainz - the teammates were wheel-to-wheel at various times.

Sainz overtook Leclerc at the start, but the Spaniard had his track compromised when he attacked Verstappen at turn 3, opening the door for Leclerc to retake the position.

A few laps later, Sainz attacked Leclerc from the outside at turn 4, but the Monegasque closed the door and settled the dispute.

Tire strategy did not play a significant role in the outcome of the race, as all the front-runners started on medium compound.

George Russell (Mercedes) was the best of the rest, having a smooth run to finish fourth.

Sergio Perez (Red Bull) made an impressive recovery from 13th on the grid to fifth with a sequence of overtaking moves after his qualifying times were deleted for exceeding track limits.

Like Russell, Esteban Ocon (Alpine) had a lonely race on his way to sixth, followed by Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).

Hamilton was hampered by a touch with Pierre Gasly at the start, which caused an AlphaTauri spin, but scored the final point with eighth place.

Sebastian Vettel abandoned at the end when Aston Martin called him into the pits after a touch with Alex Albon - who was also punished for pushing Lando Norris off the track.

There was drama even before the start, with Fernando Alonso and Zhou Guanyu falling victim to bad luck.

Alonso, who had qualified eighth, was stranded on the grid with tire blankets due to a technical problem that eventually forced the Alpine mechanics to push the car back to the garage.

Further back, Zhou stopped at the end of the introductory lap when his engine went out. Although he was able to restart it, the Chinese driver was forced to start from the pits.

Due to Zhou's incident, the start was aborted, which reduced the short race to 23 laps.

Race standings: