Race Review: Austria

The Austrian GP can be described in five words… Max domination and penalties galore….

The Austrian GP is the second race in a row at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. The circuit length is 4.318 km (2.68 miles) with 10 turns and 3 DRS zones. The drivers complete 71 laps with the fastest lap last year going to Carlos Sainz, with 1:05.619. It was amazing to see fans back. 132,000 were in attendance and it is safe to say that 99% of them were there, in orange, for Max Verstappen….

Free practice was fairly uneventful. FP1 saw Verstappen, Leclerc and Sainz at the top of the time sheet, with Hamilton, Bottas and Verstappen for FP2 and Verstappen, Bottas and Hamilton at the top for FP3. Qualifying was brilliant. Q1 knocked out Mazepin, Schumacher, Latifi, Ocon and Raikkonen. Q2 saw Giovinazzi, Alonso, Ricciardo, Leclerc and Sainz out. This was huge for Russell, who made it into Q3. Everyone was on the edge of their seats for Q3, Norris put in a mega lap, putting him in at P2, missing out on pole (which went to Verstappen) by 0.048 seconds, causing huge upset for the Mercedes drivers. Russell pulled a P9 out of the bag, it was incredibly exciting. Sadly, for Vettel, his team did not tell him Alonso was approaching on a hot lap, so he did not get out of the way in time. Alonso was on for making it into Q3 however had to slow down so much that he was out at the end of Q2. Vettel was given a 3-place penalty as a result. Both Bottas and Sainz were also called to the Stewards for going unnecessarily slowly between T9 and T10, however, no further action was taken. With Vettel's penalty, the starting grid was:

P1 Verstappen, P2 Norris, P3 Perez, P4 Hamilton, P5 Bottas, P6 Gasly, P7 Tsunoda, P8 Russell, P9 Stroll, P10 Sainz, P11 Vettel, P12 Leclerc, P13 Ricciardo, P14 Alonso, P15 Giovinazzi, P16 Raikkonen, P17 Ocon, P18 Latifi, P19 Schumacher and P20 Mazepin.

It was lights out and the first lap saw the front runners stay in position, but Russell dropped to P12 after getting boxed in. At the exit of T3, Ocon got caught between Schumacher and Giovinazzi, destroying the right-hand side of his front wing, folding in his tyre, and causing him to retire by the time he got to T4. Perez tried and failed to overtake Norris, however at T4, Norris pushed Perez wide and into the gravel dropping the Mexican further down the grid. After this, there were a few swaps between Hamilton and Bottas, with Hamilton winning out.

On Lap 10, Hamilton managed to catch Norris, overtaking him, and commenting that Lando is 'a great driver', however, the 'great driver' was handed a five-second penalty for the incident with Perez a few laps before. Further down the line, the drivers then started pitting left right and centre, but Tsunoda messed up by going over the white line in the pit entry and was hit with a 5 second time penalty for the move. The young Japanese driver did the same thing further into the race and got another 5 seconds for doing so.

It wasn't going to be plain sailing for Hamilton who at around Lap 32, realised he had damage to the aero surfaces on the rear of the car which was affecting his race pace. Behind him and Norris, Gasly, Ricciardo, Perez and Leclerc were all battling it out. Leclerc went for the overtake at T4 but was pushed wide by Perez who got a 5-second penalty for doing so. A few laps later, the same thing happened again, and Perez received another 5-second penalty, taking his total to 10 seconds.

After a weird message to Bottas, telling him not to race Hamilton, the order was taken back, and the Mercedes switched position on Lap 52. Norris then took Hamilton the following lap for P3, with Stroll hit with a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Hamilton then pitted, with Verstappen following suit. Verstappen had such a gap at the front that he reappeared over 7 seconds ahead of Bottas after pitting. Sainz then managed to overtake Ricciardo for P6 with Alonso managing to overtake Russell for P10, dropping the Brit out of the points.

However, on T4 on the final lap, Raikkonen ended up hitting Vettel in a bizarre incident which sent them both off the track. Verstappen had already crossed the line at this point, taking the victory and the fastest lap.

You thought we were done with the penalties; well, you were wrong…. 11 drivers were called to the stewards post-race. Vettel and Raikkonen were called for the incident on the final lap, which resulted in a 20-second penalty and 2 penalty points for Raikkonen. Gasly, Ricciardo, Giovinazzi, Latifi, Leclerc, Sainz, Perez and Mazepin were all called in for not slowing down under double yellow flags. Action was only taken on Mazepin and Latifi, who were both given a 30-second penalty and 3 penalty points. The final driver to be called was Russell, for defensive driving (moving under breaking) at T4, however, no action was taken here either. This takes the total number of penalties up to 9 for the race….

With all the penalties applied, the race results were as follows:

P1 Verstappen, P2 Bottas, P3 Norris, P4 Hamilton, P5 Sainz, P6 Perez, P7 Ricciardo, P8 Leclerc, P9 Gasly, P10 Alonso, P11 Russell, P12 Tsunoda, P13 Stroll, P14 Giovinazzi, P15 Raikkonen, P16 Latifi, P17 Vettel, P18 Schumacher, P19 Mazepin, DNF Ocon.

Driver Of The Day: Norris

The fact that Norris managed to battle with Mercedes and Red Bulls, whilst driving in a McLaren, says it all. After a sensational Q3 lap put him in P2, he managed to battle around the Austrian track to take home P3. Sadly, it could have been a P2 were it not for his harsh 5-second penalty, but even that in itself says a lot about him. It was a brilliant drive.

Biggest Crash: Raikkonen and Vettel

In one of the most bizarre crashes we have seen, Raikkonen knocked into Vettel, spinning them both off the track. No one is completely sure how or why it happened, but you can watch the crash here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr1JLNOswdw

Overtake Of The Day: Norris

Norris' overtake on Hamilton for P3 was brilliant. The two Mercedes had just switched places, putting Bottas into P2, and Norris took his chance. He went for the overtake but didn't quite make it, dropped back and then went again on the straight, completing the move beautifully. You can watch the sequence here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMk6208mUf4

Biggest Heartbreak: Russell

Everyone was rooting for Russell to get his first points for Williams in today's race. Having qualified P8, he was on for a great race however on the first lap, he got boxed in by other drivers on a corner and dropped down to P12. He managed to fight his way up back up to P8 but settled into P10. However, in the last few laps, Alonso overtook, dropping him out of the points. He was so close yet so far; even Alonso said he felt bad that it was George who he overtook. Fingers crossed for points in his home race.

Best Radio Comment: Norris

After a spin between T3 and T4, Norris' engineer asked him what damage was done to the car. Lando simply replied "uhhh talent'. It definitely cracked up Crofty in the commentator's box! Classic witty comment from the young Brit.

Takeaways

What a drive from Norris! He was up there battling with Red Bulls and Mercedes and without the 5-second penalty, he would have been P2. He is the only driver to score points in every race this season and he is still ahead of Bottas in the drivers' standings. Hopefully, we keep seeing such great driving for the rest of the season. It was also great to see his teammate Ricciardo up in the points. After not performing well in qualifying, he put in a great performance, finishing P7 and said that he really enjoyed the race.

The penalties were flying left right and centre. Both Horner and Seidl thought Norris' penalty was unfair and that the incident between himself and Perez was a racing one. Whilst many believe that Perez deserved his penalties, Norris' one definitely ensured that Perez got his for consistency reasons. What a crazy race!

What's happened to Ocon? After signing a contract extension, his results have gone down the drain. He only qualified P17 and even though he retired from the race at T4 of the first lap, his performance in the two races previously has not been fab. Maybe it is just a streak of bad luck, and he can turn it around.

The Ferrari's put in a solid shift as well, finishing P5 and P8 after qualifying P11 and P12. They've had great race pace over the last two weekends which is an improvement on the French GP 2 weeks ago. The AlphaTauri's had an okay race, but Helmut Marko will not be happy with Tsunoda's time penalties for the same thing twice!

It was also brilliant to have so many fans back, particularly as Verstappen put on a masterclass for them. They were also hugely supportive of Norris as well which went down well with fans watching everywhere.

Next up we have Silverstone, with a full capacity of 140,000 in attendance. We will be taking you along with us on our trip to Silverstone for the whole weekend, so stay tuned for the first-hand content in two weekends times.