“Almost like amateurs” is how Max Verstappen described his impression of qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix and the slew of penalties handed out for exceeding track limits.

It had been a session defined as much by the drivers’ ability to keep their cars on the road as it had been by their speed. Verstappen had struck the best balance between control and attack to take pole, but others had far more difficulty.

Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Pérez was one of the least capable of positioning his car relative to the white lines. Three times he went out of bounds in Q2, leaving him without a time and down in 15th on the grid.

Verstappen had been caught out several times too earlier in the hour, but like the rest of those who rose into the top-10 shootout, he wound back his aggression until he found a safe level of speed that kept him on the grey bit.

It’s part of the reason the fight for pole ended up so close.

The Dutchman was driving well within himself to pip Charles Leclerc to pole by just 0.048 seconds.

From Q1 to Q3 Leclerc found 1.138 seconds. Verstappen improved by just 0.725 seconds, working hard to ensure his times were never at risk.

While lap times won’t be faster in Saturday sprint qualifying — especially if it’s raining — it’ll be interesting to see whether the relative advantages remain similar or blow out once drivers have had a night to think about their approaches.

WHY WERE THERE SO MANY TIME DELETIONS?

Race control recorded 33 infringements during the session — roughly one every minute and 20 seconds of track running — leading to Verstappen’s “amateur” comments.

Why was it so bad?

“It is I think one of the worst tracks for it,” Verstappen said. “It‘s super hard to judge around here.

“You have all the [track] compressions as well, where if you hit it slightly wrong, the car immediately drops away from you or understeers and then it‘s super easy to go over the white line.”

The undulating track has a habit of tempting drivers into overcomitting, even if by only a matter of centimetres.

Almost all the infringements were found at turns 9 and 10, both high-speed downhill corners with wide kerbs that can fool a driver into thinking they have more room to play with than they really do.

That’s a notably different scenario to many other circuits, where similar corners would probably be paired with gravel as a deterrent. It’s extremely rare to see drivers running wide even at turn 4 on this same track, where stones will quickly write off a lap time.

But gravel isn’t possible at all corners on all tracks given Formula 1 is rarely the only game in town.

“Of course a lot of the tracks we share with MotoGP or whatever, bike championships in general, and of course they want something else outside of the kerbs than what we would like.

“For us putting gravel there is fine, but for a bike it’s a bit different, so we need to think about maybe different solutions.”

Ironically one of those different solutions was likely on show today. This year the FIA is running its remote operations centre to assist race control and the stewards with identifying infringements.

Essentially it’s more cops on the beat, meaning even marginal offences were being picked up that in previous years may have slipped through the net.

That’s combined with race director Niels Wittich taking a hard-line approach to the white line as the track boundary. Previous directors, including Michael Masi, had sometimes allowed leeway at some corners by declaring kerbs as the boundary.

But evidently the no-exceptions approach isn’t to everyone’s taste.

“I think today it looked very silly,” Verstappen said. “It almost looked like we were amateurs out there, the amount of lap times that were getting deleted.

“Also, some of them were so marginal, where … it‘s impossible to judge if it’s out or in, and they were still getting deleted.

“I don‘t think it was a good look today.”

It’s one of those intractable F1 debates. Of course drivers can take a few tenths off to guarantee safety — as Verstappen did — but if takes 33 deleted lap times to get there, is it still the right overall solution?

Expect more debate with another qualifying session tonight.

PÉREZ GETS A CHANCE AT REDEMPTION — BUT NOT AT BIG POINTS

More debate will do little for Sergio Pérez, who for the fourth straight weekend and fifth time this season failed to make the top-10 shootout.

He’ll start Sunday’s race from 15th, his lowest starting position of the year barring the crash-affected results in Australia and Monaco.

The Mexican complained that he was forced off track on his final lap by Alex Albon, who he claimed was impeding him.

But he also complained that the stewards didn’t find Albon guilty of impeding.

That also doesn’t excuse the two previous lap times he had had deleted for overrunning the track boundary.

In a car as quick as his, there was no need to be pushing so hard three laps in succession that track limits should have been a problem.

That’s doubly so given the pressure he’s under to turn his form around. Regardless of the fact team principal Christian Horner says he’s under no risk of being axed, Pérez himself surely can’t abide the continuation of such a poor run of results.

The good news for the Mexican on another painful day is that he appeared to genuinely have Verstappen-matching pace.

His fastest time from Q2 before it was deleted was 1 minute 4.990 seconds.

Verstappen Q2-topping time was 1 minute 4.951 seconds — just 0.039 seconds quicker.

He has another qualifying session to get that much-needed one-lap reset on Saturday, albeit a shorter and punchier one where mistakes will be more quickly punished.

Unfortunately for him, it’ll have no bearing on the grand prix, when the big points are scored. But you get the sense he and the team will take a clean run as a sign of progress.

FERRARI OPTIMISTIC ABOUT GAINS

It’s not unusual for Ferrari to show well during qualifying and end up nowhere during the race, but there was a subtly different vibe about Leclerc’s run to second on the grid just 0.048 seconds shy of pole.

That difference was in the SF-23’s performance through the medium and high-speed corners.

So far this season those sorts of quick bends have been the car’s weakness. On Friday Leclerc was quicker than Verstappen through the fastest corners.

“The feeling from the car has been a bit better in the last three races,” Leclerc confirmed.

Ferrari brought yet more upgrades to Austria, including a new front wing and, most importantly, a new floor. This follows major updates in Spain.

With Sainz just 0.142 seconds being Leclerc in third, the team is optimistic these new parts are finally unpicking the car’s biggest problems.

“We hadn’t expected to be that close to the Red Bull, so it’s a good step forward,” Leclerc said. “I would like to thank everyone back at the factory for all the work they have done in the last few weeks in order to bring an update package at Spielberg, earlier than planned.

“It’s really impressive and helped us to perform well today.”

If it’s dry, the sprint race will be an interesting test of the car’s other chief weakness of tyre life ahead of a more punishing Sunday grand prix. Only after that can we say for certain that the team is really turning a corner.

MCLAREN’S UPGRADES PAY OFF — BUT EXPECTATIONS SHOULD BE TEMPERED

There was concern that McLaren’s rushed upgrade gamble was at risk of flopping during the single practice session on Friday. Norris completed just 20 laps in the heavily updated car before returning to the garage,

But rather than being concerned about pace, the team had been worried about damaging parts over the kerbs. Because the upgrade package had been rushed to arrive one race early, the pool of spare parts was limited. Running out of spares after qualifying and switching to older parts would result in Norris starting from the back of the grid for the sprint and the grand prix.

Indeed the team wasn’t worried about pace at all, as Norris demonstrated brilliantly once the grid-setting hour arrived.

The Briton put his car fourth in the order just 0.267 seconds off pole.

“It was one of the best qualifying sessions of the season,” he said. “The car was feeling good today, I had a lot of confidence and was chipping away through qualifying, so I’m happy.”

It’s undoubtedly a good result, but a grain of salt is required when reading the times raw.

The new parts are seriously unlikely to have made the McLaren an instant frontrunner.

McLaren’s cars have always performed strongly in Spielberg and Norris has always been particularly good, with two of his six career podiums coming at the Red Bull Ring.

It’s also notable that Oscar Piastri would’ve been comfortably through to Q3 had he not had his fastest lap time of Q2 deleted. The Australian rookie would’ve been just 0.175 seconds behind Norris had the time stood.

Replicating that difference in Q3 would have put him just two places behind Norris on the grid in sixth. That’s despite him using the old car without the upgrades — a car we know for certain isn’t even a regular points-getter, never mind a podium contender.

That shouldn’t take away from Norris’s great performance or the positivity around the upgrade, however; it should just put into perspective that McLaren’s recovery job is bigger than it looked on Friday.