Last year, only the top three could score a maximum of three points in the sprint but for 2022, the winner gets eight, with points available all the way down to eighth place, which earns a singular point. As previously, the sprint result will determine the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

The race format remains the same, being run over 100km (62 miles), which amounts to 24 laps in Austria. The quandary for drivers is how hard to chase the points, bearing in mind an error could scupper their Grand Prix on the following day.

While the results are often unsurprising (in Imola Verstappen took all eight points ahead of Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez), sprint races have given drivers a shot of redemption after disappointing qualifying sessions. So Perez started the Emilia Romagna GP on the second row of the grid despite qualifying seventh, while Carlos Sainz was fourth in the sprint after starting tenth. Last year Lewis Hamilton won in Brazil after starting last in the sprint. His gains in the shorter race enabled him to start the Grand Prix tenth on the grid — his springboard to victory.

This will be F1’s last sprint for a while with the third and final one of 2022 once again taking place in Brazil during November.

 

Will Red Bull win yet another home race?

No driver has won more grands prix at the Red Bull Ring than Verstappen with four wins in the past five races. That record is all the more impressive when you consider that half of those victories came when the car wasn’t good enough to challenge for a title.

With what currently appears to be the strongest package on the grid, Red Bull and Verstappen head into this weekend as the heavy favourites, set to bounce back from their poor luck in the British Grand Prix.

Even without Verstappen’s form at the circuit, Red Bull’s pace on the straights, linked by high-speed corners, should give it the advantage this weekend.

Leclerc hasn’t stepped on to the podium for two months, and the Red Bull Ring is not the ideal place for him to break his bad run of form, but as the season races on, the Ferrari driver needs his luck to change, particularly after team-mate Sainz’s win in Silverstone and Perez’s climb in the title race.

 

Has Mercedes re-gained its mojo?

After a tricky couple of weekends around street circuits like Monaco and Azerbaijan, Mercedes then bounced back with a stronger showing in Canada.

This left it cautiously optimistic for the smoother, high-speed Silverstone circuit and the hope was justified.

During practice Mercedes was setting similar lap times to Ferrari and Red Bull, before falling victim to poor strategy in a wet qualifying session.

George Russell never got a chance to show his pace in the race after his dramatic collision with Zhou Guanyu but, for Lewis Hamilton, the race was much more positive.

He finished on the podium after starting fifth and can count himself unlucky not to have won after setting the pace at several points during the race.

Austria is perhaps the perfect circuit to follow to truly see if that pace was genuine, thanks to the similarities it holds to Silverstone.

If Mercedes can back it up with another strong showing, which it should be able to do, then Mercedes can analyse its W13 much more positively and look forward to the second half of the season.

While the car might not be able to challenge Red Bull for the win, another podium this weekend will show that Mercedes has started to turn its fortunes around.

 

Zhou Guanyu to race following horrific Silverstone crash 

It’s taken for granted that Zhou is returning to the cockpit in Austria, less than a week after he was involved in one of the most spectacular crashes in recent F1 history.

And there’s no reason why he shouldn’t, after emerging unharmed when his car was flipped, skidded across the track upside down, bounced through the gravel and was then catapulted into the catch-fence, becoming wedged between the metal frame and the tyre wall.

His escape is another example of the safety advances made in modern racing, with layer upon layer of devices coming together to protect drivers from

It’s no miracle that the Alfa Romeo’s harnesses kept Zhou in place, that the halo remained firm as the roll hoop collapsed, that the fuel tank contained 90 litres of volatile petrol, and that the safety cell remained intact at each impact, but the compounding of decades of research.

On Monday, Zhou tweeted: “Hi everyone and thank you for all the kind messages. I want to thank the marshals and the medical team at Silverstone – they were really fantastic. I’m keener than ever to get back on track. See you guys in Austria.”

Silverstone was the second weekend in a row that Zhou had qualified inside the top 10, after finishing in the points in Canada. The rookie is starting to build momentum, while team-mate Valtteri Bottas has had a strong season so far: Alfa Romeo could be in for more points this weekend.

 

More problems for Daniel Ricciardo

Conversations about Daniel Ricciardo’s form have been a constant in 2022, given he has only two points finishes this season and is struggling to make it three.

At Silverstone, the McLaren driver was still having problems with his setup, as he did in Barcelona. “Once the race got restarted I was just struggling with grip,” he said after the British GP.

“It simply didn’t feel like I was operating at the same level of grip as the others. I was getting eaten up and couldn’t really do anything about it. Then that seemed to be our pace for the race.”

He described it as “pretty sad” after finishing a lowly P13, as his team-mate who finished sixth. If Ricciardo’s problems continue at the Red Bull Ring, which has similar characteristics to Silverstone, the contrasting fortunes between Ricciardo and Lando Norris threaten to be even more obvious. Norris has already scored two podiums in Austria so, if past form is anything to go by, the Red Bull Ring is a happy hunting ground for him.