Have a quick listen of how Charles Leclerc got himself on to pole.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at the Red Bull Ring

Image source, EPA

Lando Norris was “happy” with his sixth place in qualifying but kicking himself for not finding the 0.028secs that would have put him ahead of Kevin Magnussen’s Haas - even if it didn’t matter, because the Dane has a grid penalty for a gearbox change. If Norris can convert his fifth place on the grid to fifth at the end, he will better the sixth place he achieved in Bahrain. But’s wary, particularly, of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari behind.

“We have Vettel behind, who’s going to be very quick,” Norris said. “P5 would be a dream result but we’ll pick up on the pieces, try to stay out of trouble and if anything happens to the others, which hopefully it does, you never know. The race pace has been pretty good and if we can continue with that, we can be pretty confident. But being realistic with who’s behind and is probably to be coming past, fifth/sixth is probably the best we can expect.”

Andrew Ogley: Is this a glimpse into the future with Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen on the front row of the grid?

Stephen Taylor: Think Leclerc might be on the wrong tyres and strategy which looks likely to be a 2 stop race for him where as Verstappen and Mercedes might do only one . Mercedes and Max have the strategic aces in their hands in my opinion even if they don't have the raw pace

Richmond Quaye: I feel for Charles Leclerc but I can’t see him winning this race. He’ll be beaten down to third because of strategy (tyres!!)

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Hamilton's view. Looks a lot better than fifth would've done, but not as good as second.

Valtteri Bottas has led the most laps at the Red Bull Ring, but he's got to get ahead of two other drivers to increase that number today.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at the Red Bull Ring

Image source, Reuters

If you want evidence of the strength of the Ferrari engine, you only have to look at the fact that five of the 10 cars in the top 10 use it. This helped Haas - with Kevin Magnussen (pictured) an excellent fifth before his gearbox penalty - as did the the hot temperatures, which helped the team get the tyres into the right operating-temperature window. Alfa Romeo have also clearly benefited, with Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi seventh and eighth, and the Italian continuing his strong form from France, just 0.013secs off the Finn. Now he has to do it in the race, in which he faded at Paul Ricard.

“Our car has made a step forward since France,” Giovinazzi said. “I feel I am getting more and more confident every time I step in the car and I am happy with the work we are doing together with the team. Having two cars in the top ten gives us a good chance to score points, but we still need to work out the best strategy for the race. Our long run pace is good and I think we can play our part in the battle.”

What are we going to get today? You just never know. This time last year neither of the Mercedes finished.

They had a front-row lockout but the race itself was a rare disaster for the Silver Arrows as Bottas had to retire on the 13th lap because of a hydraulics issue.

The team then chose not to pit Hamilton during the resulting virtual safety car period, with chief strategist James Vowles apologising to the Briton over team radio as their chances of a win were severely hampered.

But it all counted for nothing anyway as Hamilton's day ended on the 64th lap with a fuel pressure problem as for just the third time in eight years both Mercedes cars failed to finish a race.

Image source, .

Given the Red Bull Ring is hosting the race this weekend, we'd expect something a little more wild, like a giant can of Red Bull or something schnitzel shaped.

But this is much better than France's gorilla trophy.

Image source, Reuters

Ross: Not wanting to spoil the party but with the two youngsters on the front row, what's the chances of a crash at Turn 1, as they both go for it? Thoughts?

Chris Mea: The volatility of the grid leaders is designed to cause accidents so I'm still expecting to see the Mercedes boys on the podium.

JJ Jackson: Race prediction: Leclerc, Verstappen, Hamilton, with strong showing for Norris (5th?) and Vettel DNF. In fantasy land, Russell makes the points, but sadly that requires nine retirements...

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at the Red Bull Ring

Image source, Getty Images

The second Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly had looked for much of the weekend as if he might finally get himself out of the rut that has led to questions about his place in the team. He was pretty close to Max Verstappen - until final qualifying, when a mistake at Turn One, running wide, left him 0.7secs behind and down in ninth place. He reckoned fifth was on had he not messed up.

"Overall there were a lot of positives, and also in qualifying, but just disappointing not to put things together when it really mattered in Q3,” the Frenchman said. “I managed to have some decent pace this weekend, but just this afternoon in the last run when it mattered I didn't do it. [I'm] just upset with myself.”

As for his shaky future with Red Bull, and the need to turn things around with some haste, he said: “The main thing is just to focus on myself, for sure. There are a lot of negative talks going around, sometimes deserved and sometimes not deserved. but it is part of this job and something you need to handle. Is it fair? Sometimes I don’t think so but at the end of the day all I can do is focus on myself and think or try to find out what I can do better. There are things I can do better with this car, for sure because I am not completely driving the way I would like and there are things I could change to go faster and that’s what I am trying to focus on.

“Racing drivers are all quite impatient and we want results now. But sometimes you just need to go step by step and make little progress. I think this weekend we made overall and hopefully the bigger picture will be able to show them this potential and the performance really soon.”

This is without doubt one of the best atmospheres of the season. Let's hope the race matches the occasion.

Image source, Getty Images

Red Bull Racing team principal, Christian Horner is happy with how the weekend has unfolded so far at their Red Bull's Austrian home. He has told Sky Sports: "It was a phenomenal lap by [Max Verstappen] hopefully we can convert it into a result - it's a big race here for us, and we want to put on a good show today.

"I didn't think we could win it last year here but we did. Ferrari look mighty - they are very fast on the straights. Mercedes maybe under-performed in qualifying yesterday but it's going to be a tough race especially with this heat.

"Max has the exuberance of youth and he's driving with such maturity and at such a level. He's doing an incredible job. He's enjoying the environment he's in. He's taken a step up to the more mature leadership role since Daniel left and the Max Verstappen in the last 12 months has been remarkable."

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at the Red Bull Ring

Image source, Getty Images

Max Verstappen won Red Bull’s home grand prix last season, after Mercedes’ race unravelled with a retirement, a botched strategy, and then another retirement. He did not enter this weekend too hopeful of a repeat, but upgrades have transformed the Red Bull’s form, and a front-row start means another victory is a very realistic possibility, especially given the way Red Bull have often out-thought Ferrari on strategy this season.

“Our whole weekend, the performance has been a lot better,” Verstappen said. “Before we came here, I was actually not really looking forward to it, to qualifying, because I knew that it was going to be hard – but actually, with the new updates we’ve got to the car, we gained a bit of performance and I was really happy with the car throughout qualifying and I think in the corners as well, we looked very competitive.

“We do know that we are lacking quite a bit of pace to Ferrari and even to Mercedes of course on the straights but knowing this is not a great track for us, it’s still a great result in qualifying. It puts a big smile on my face and hopefully I can give them a great result,” he said.

We've had some crazy races in Austria.

Back in 1987, when the track looked completely different and was known as Osterreichring, there was carnage as the race had to be started from scratch three times.

The first start saw a multi-car crash, then a slow-starting Nigel Mansell caused a 12-car pile-up at the second attempt.

The third start, two hours after the original one, was clean with the repaired Mansell going on to take an unlikely victory. But the drama was not done then as Mansell, being taken back to the podium and standing up in the back of a little pick-up truck, then managed to smash his head on a steel girder.

He was left with a huge bump on his head and his pain became even worse when BBC commentator Murray Walker inadvertently prodded the wound in a post-race interview, causing the Briton to wince in agony as you can see below.

Hard not to laugh at this clip! Sorry Nigel.

Just before we get under way, a quick steer towards our Chequered Flag Podcast, with our BBC Radio 5 live experts - Jack Nicholls, Jolyon Palmer, and Claire Cottingham. To listen just click here.

We've mentioned tributes to Niki Lauda in Austria and Red Bull posted a message earlier today saying that Turn One will now be known as the Niki Lauda Kurve, in honour of the Austrian Formula 1 legend, who died last month.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at the Red Bull Ring

Image source, Getty Images

Renault made some promising progress at their home race last weekend but that has come to a shuddering halt in Austria. They have looked uncompetitive all weekend, and Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo start 12th and 15th. Both were caught up behind Kevin Magnussen when he ran wide at Turn Four in second qualifying and brought out a red flag, but Ricciardo said it hadn’t made any difference - he wasn’t going any quicker anyway.

Ricciardo said their entire weekend had been chasing problems in the car but not really getting anywhere. “It has just been a bit of a struggle,” he said. “We changed quite a bit on the car after Friday - both Nico and I felt we weren’t quite there on the set-up. But then we found out that we had a few set-up issues on the car after third practice so we kind of made them right for qualifying but then it didn’t really seem to give it that much more.

"We had a few other issues here and there but we never really looked like a Q3 car from the start. I kind of get the feeling there is maybe something more fundamental with the car that we haven’t got on top of yet because we changed a lot and always end up with the same outcome.”

Obviously the chances of a Daniel Ricciardo win are very, very slim, so we just have to look back into the archives for his fantastic reaction when he won here in 2017 back in his Red Bull days.