Max Verstappen wins the Styrian Grand Prix with Mercedes seemingly unable to match Red Bull pace.
After a surprisingly thrilling French GP, attention turned to the Red Bull Ring where the next two races of the season will be held. Rather ironically, Red Bull had never been on pole at their home circuit until Saturday’s qualifying, where Verstappen posted an unbeatable time of 1:03.841.
The Mercedes drivers did put up a commendable fight with Bottas coming the closest to challenging Verstappen for pole. However, his slightly bizarre pit-lane spin during Friday’s FP2 session resulted in a three-place grid penalty. Bottas was demoted to P5 with teammate Hamilton taking his place in P2 at the front row of the grid.
McLaren’s Lando Norris continued to impress, qualifying P4 and then being promoted to P3, a knock-on effect from Bottas’ penalty. Norris has gone from strength to strength appearing on the podium twice this year and being the only driver to score points in every single race so far.
His teammate Riccardo has been taking time to adapt to the McLaren but appeared to make headway in the French GP finishing 6th just behind Lando. Unfortunately, he struggled for pace in qualifying and could do no better than 13th in a disappointing turn of events for the Aussie.
Tipped for a possible Mercedes drive, Williams driver George Russell missed out on Q3 by just 8 hundredths of a second. After Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was handed a three place grid penalty for impeding Bottas, Russel found himself in P10 for the race start.
On Sunday, focus shifted to the front row with Hamilton and Verstappen starting alongside each other once again. Both drivers had great starts, Max maintained his position into turn one with Hamilton close behind.
There was much more action further down the field with Leclerc and Gasly colliding in the first few comers. This appeared very costly for Ferrari in their fight with Mclaren in the Constructors’ Championship as Leclerc was forced to pit for a new front wing. Gasly however made contact with several other cars, ending up with a terminal puncture and broken suspension. He retired not long after.
Impressively, Lando remained in P3 for the opening laps of the race with Perez saying he needed more power on the straights to overtake the McLaren driver. Yet, Although McLaren team principal Zak Brown said they were aiming for a podium, they ultimately decided to focus on their battle with Ferrari as Lando let both Perez and Bottas pass with no complaints. As Perez and Bottas were likely to pass the McLaren sooner or later it was probably a wise decision as it allowed Norris to focus on his tyres and maintain P5.
In the mid-field of the pack, Williams driver Russell was holding his own though it became clear he couldn’t sustain his current pace for much longer. He pit for an excruciatingly slow stop to change tyres and an attempt to fix an issue to do with the cars pneumatic pressure. Unfortunately for the British driver, the problem could not be resolved leading to retirement.
The growing gap between the two leaders put Red Bull in an excellent position: they could react to whatever strategy Mercedes decided to pull. Indeed, after Hamilton pit, Verstappen choose to do the same one lap later, leading to the Dutchman, maintaining his lead over the British driver.
Later in the race, Max could be heard complaining about his brake pedal with Red Bull telling him to avoid breaking on the curb at turn 10. While he thought this would cost him too much time, the gap to Hamilton was now nearly 8 seconds which gave him some breathing room up ahead. Things weren’t getting any better for Hamilton either as he was warned for breaking track limits twice at turn 10. In the end, P2 was the best Hamilton could achieve as he pit again for soft tyres to attempt to set the fastest lap
Behind Bottas in P4, Red Bull chose to pit Perez again for medium tyres in a much smoother stop than previously. He quickly began hunting Bottas down for a place on the podium.
Crossing the finish line in P1, Max Verstappen celebrated with a victory burnout (which won’t be tolerated again by the FIA). In the end, the gap between Verstappen and Hamilton was staggering 15 seconds. Checo came close to overtaking Bottas for P3 but would’ve needed an extra lap to complete the move. After an early crash, Charles Leclerc finished in a highly impressive P7 which saw him voted Driver of the Day by the fans.
With the gap between Verstappen and Hamilton now 18 points, we won’t have long to wait to see if Lewis can embody his motto and rise to the challenge that Red Bull have set.
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