Free Practice...
FP1:
We're back in Austria! A week after the Styrian Grand Prix you’d think nothing had changed but this weekend looked to be a great one, with softer tyres and hotter conditions for the Friday sessions the teams had a challenge on their hands despite being here the week before. We welcomed our fighters onto the tarmac with new Pirelli testing tyres, the teams were obliged to test them on high and low fuel runs - they are a new, more robust C4 compound which if it’s given the go ahead will be used from the British Grand Prix onwards (mostly to avoid those costly tyre blowouts which happened last year in Silverstone).
It was the return of the young drivers this weekend, with Antonio Giovinazzi, Fernando Alonso and George Russell giving up their first hour of practice for young drivers Callum Ilott, Guanyu Zhou and Roy Nissany.
Lance Stroll was seeming to struggle on the softer tyres, blaming his issues on cold tyre warm up, spinning twice in the first session once at Turn 9 and once at Turn 10 - he did however manage to recover the session to P13 ahead of Sebastian Vettel.
Despite being given a spinning top by his Team Principal to stop him “mazespinning” - Mazepin still managed to spin at Turn 3, his Haas spinning before he touched the gravel suggesting it was driver error rather than tyres being affected by gravel. Then Yuki Tsunoda, another rookie, spun into the gravel trap but recovered back to the pits with no serious damage. Turn 2 was seeming to cause Lando Norris a lot of issues, while pushing the limits of the track, as he found himself going wide there multiple times gaining a lot of knowledge and experience on the track he has gone very well on.
Our young drivers had a great day with Roy Nissany even outpacing Nicholas Latifi, and Guanyu Zhou being 4 tenths off his teammate Esteban Ocon. At the end of the session Zhou showed how he was truly grateful for this experience with: “Thank you so much everyone for this experience, I absolutely loved it” - he and Nissany will return to the cockpit of their F2 cars in Silverstone at the next race weekend.
The Tifosi, if this were Monza, would be going insane with a Ferrari 2-3 at the end of the session, however the famous tifosi have competition with the orange army coming out in full force. The sea of orange shirts, face paint and smoke flares covering the grandstands with plenty of dancing and music, certainly injected life into the weekend.
FP2:
We started off the session with a very frustrated Max Verstappen, complaining of traffic from the get go. Unfortunately on this short track, traffic is not uncommon and at times dangerous as we saw at Turn 9 and 10 where the FIA later on in the weekend gave a new directive saying that slowing down between 9 and 10 will land you a penalty after an incident between Fernando Alonso and Mick Schumacher almost colliding at the pit entry.
Lando Norris still had a few struggles at Turn 1, having a spin on a fast lap. When asked by his engineer what damage he had Lando simply replied “talent”, the sarcasm hiding his frustration slightly there as he limped back to the pits. No spins occurred for Stroll this session and there was better pace all round at Aston Martin, looking promising for Q3 on Saturday should they play their cards right. Both of the Ferrari cars had a worse session, contrasting with their promising pace in FP1, Charles going for a spin at Turn 9 almost ending up in the wall. Luckily no one was nearby and no damage was dealt. Carlos had a quieter session, just testing his tyres and pushing the limits finishing ahead of Lecelrc in P13.
Mercedes had a better session, having a 1-2 Lewis outpacing max by 2 tenths of a second with Max sitting behind Bottas in P3.
FP3:
Not much happened for the first twenty minutes, with the teams getting in their final runs on the prototype tyres for Pirelli before getting in their qualifying simulations in on the soft tyres.
The only real moment of concern came from Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 9, spinning onto the slightly damp grass and finishing this session P12, 8 places behind his teammate Pierre Gasly who continued his great run of form finishing P4.
Fernando Alonso pulled another great lap out of his Alpine, finishing the session P8, as one of the eldest on the grid he certainly shows that his experience can convert into pace, with Ocon being 13th however the gap was only about 2 tenths of a second. Another great performer was Antonio Giovinazzi, getting the most out of his Alfa Romeo to go P5 however was still 7 tenths off Verstappen's time, so it was unlikely he would be able to convert this to such a high result in qualifying.
Birthday boy Sebastian Vettel stayed within the top 10, only just, the now 34 year old outpacing his teammate by only by 0.004s, Stroll and Vettel being very evenly matched so far in the weekend - perhaps qualifying would show the true gap between them?
It was the usual suspects at the top of the times though, Verstappen first with Bottas half a second behind and Lewis a tenth behind Valtteri, however this was just practice and when the afternoon arrived, it would be time for qualifying.
Qualifying...
Unsurprisingly, the grandstands set around the Red Bull Ring were packed to the brim with Dutch and Max Verstappen fans wearing near-identical orange shirts. Dutch fans are certainly some of the most powerful- the roar that came from the full-capacity crowds when Max Verstappen flashed by or shot to the top of the timing screens certainly reflected Max’s “Unleash the lion” brand. If the tsunami of orange shirts wasn’t enough, some of the fans unleashed orange flares to strengthen the evident support for the championship leader, and Red Bull. Whether the consequent and apparent opposition to Mercedes dominance would be detrimental to their performance, we would all find out.
Before qualifying, Toto Wolff stated that Mercedes may fall at the hot temperature hurdle, with the air temperature beginning at 25 degrees and track temperature at 52 degrees. However, if the temperatures decreased and dished Mercedes more favour, Merc could fit in a third run in Q3 (a strategy they chose last time, due to the short lap) if necessary- whether to leap up into P1 or create a buffer.
Q1:
For the first few moments of qualifying, Haas had the track all to themselves which provided them with ideal clean air and no traffic. None of the other teams were in a hurry to get out on track with 18 minutes on the clock and a short lap distance. When they did eventually emerge, unlike the Haas pair who sported the soft compound (their best chance of escaping Q1), many cars opted for the mediums as track temperatures continued to climb and the soft tyre dropped off more quickly.
When Verstappen came out on track, he immediately stamped his mark on the timing sheets by going purple in all sectors and ending with a 1:04.249. The Mercedes pair would fall behind the Dutchman after their first laps, but alongside the hoped battle between Hamilton and Verstappen, many eyes may have been set on Valtteri Bottas, who was definitely keen to prove himself against his teammate after Hamilton’s two-year contract extension announcement, and the rumours about the community of Russell ascending to Mercedes. Meanwhile George Russell (Mr Saturday) slid into P10 on his first lap, continuing to impress. The Mercedes cars were displaced by an extremely promising McLaren piloted by Lando Norris on one of his later runs- his 1:04.345 was just 0.096 behind Max Verstappen. Alonso also pushed the Mercs down the board in his midfield Alpine car. Mercedes saw fit to try one more fast lap for each driver on used softs, but neither improved and remained a pretty safe P4 and P5. After just 3 laps on track (including out and in-laps), Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso were confident to remain in the pits, as well as Lando Norris, Hamilton and Bottas after 6 laps.
Russell stormed the field to P12, making it through to Q2 yet again, but around him things were frantic. Ocon struggled in comparison to his teammate and was losing several tenths braking into and accelerating out of Turn 1, and on his make-or-break lap only improved to P13. Aston Martin and Alpha Tauri both managed to save their cars, meaning Q1 would drop the exact same drivers as it did a week previously but in a different order. All drivers in the drop zone could not break into the 1:04s- these were Raikkonen, Ocon, Latifi, Schumacher and Mazepin. Ricciardo was the man with a tense wait on the bubble- whilst his teammate sat comfortably in the pits and P2. Despite a triple-header and a week to analyse data from the previous week at the Red Bull Ring, there were worrying signs for the Honey Badger.
Q2:
Perez was the first car to set a lap and a marker for the remaining fifteen drivers. His tyre choice would be interesting for Mercedes considering Perez usually sports the red tyre for Q2, but on this occasion Red Bull decided on the mediums. Projected race strategy suggested that the mediums to the hards would be the optimum and fastest strategy- so why wouldn’t Perez want to qualify on the mediums for the race start? Taking into account Verstappen looked like the fastest car, and Mercedes were falling behind, this suggested Red Bull believed they could put both cars in front of their rivals. His early entry onto the track also implied Perez may be reserving time for more runs if his lap on the mediums wasn’t secure. With the factor of track evolution too, it looked increasingly likely soft tyres were being reserved for future use. After setting a risky 1:04.554, Perez returned to the pits to preserve his mediums, whilst many cars exited at the other end.
Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren would also boot on the medium compound, and though Hamilton in his Mercedes trumped Perez, Verstappen would do the same to him. Norris continued to show exciting speed when he slotted into second, and Perez matched his time of 1:04.483 but took third as he was the second man to set that time. Predictably, Verstappen held all purple sectors, until Russell set out on his flying lap to go purple in Sector 1 and go a tantalising P7. Like Bottas it was clear Russell was out to prove himself in light of Hamilton’s announcement, but with a brilliant qualifying last week there was a definite possibility of the Williams driver making his first Q3.
One of the two big stories to come out of Q2 was the incident between Vettel and Alonso on the Spaniard’s flying lap. Alonso was on course to improve his lap time until the two met at the final corner and Vettel was too slow to move out of the way. This eventually culminated in a three-place grid penalty for Vettel after an investigation, but regardless Alonso was not pleased and Vettel (who did go through to Q3) could only put up an apologetic hand as they approached Turn 1.
Things may have been different if Alonso had improved. The explosion which followed Russell making Q3 in P10 at the track and on social media was momentous. The Williams man had initially improved to a stunning P9, but his temporary drop zone buddy Bottas improved to P3, pushing him down to the bubble. Russell would have an even better chance of points than last week, and every single person was holding onto that hope- cue all the candle manifesting circles on Twitter.
Outside the top ten included Giovinazzi; an angry Alonso; Ricciardo, who made it the fifth occasion in nine races he failed to make Q3; and the two Ferraris- who had certainly dropped off after Leclerc’s two successive poles.
Q3:
Even though Q3 is considerably shorter than Q1, it was a bit of a waiting game for the cars to come back out on track as everybody was crossing their fingers for some more rubber to be laid down and the possibility of a slipstream. The Aston Martins were the cars to reluctantly crawl out first before the rest of the top ten followed- bar Russell. This wasn’t due to their low expectations, but perhaps Williams were waiting for the optimum track conditions to complement their one fresh set of soft tyres.
A big roar came from the crowd when Verstappen and the crowd’s clear favourite claimed provisional pole from a McLaren driver at the top of his game, Lando Norris. The top two were the first to dip into the 1:03s, and Sergio Perez would be the only other driver later on in the session to do the same. An issue for Norris however may have caused concern for the team as his fast lap time may have cost him a bit of his floor using the curbs, and Lando voiced this over the radio. The Mercedes were trailing Lando and Verstappen once again, and cooling track temperatures were perhaps a gift of opportunity on their last laps.
With a few minutes to go everyone came out for their final shot at pole, and this time Russell would join them. Verstappen was the first out of the blocks followed by Norris which was reflective of their places on the timing screens. Everyone expected the traditional battle between the Silver Arrows and the Bulls, but instead Verstappen’s biggest threat was Lando Norris in the papaya colours. There was definitely a feeling of tension in the stands and the garages when Lando took a purple first sector and ahead Verstappen failed to improve his own. Going into the second sector Norris was one tenth up on the Dutchman, and even improved his second sector whilst Verstappen continued his lacking final run without personal bests. Pole would go right down to the end of Norris’ lap- where Verstappen would barely scrape pole by 0.048 seconds. Despite winning this small battle where many people would have been happy, Max was unimpressed by his performance in post-quali interviews, perhaps because he left himself and his pole position at risk. The second Red Bull would go from fifth to third, putting them in a prime position to extend their championship lead ahead of Mercedes, who were forced to settle for a miserable fourth and fifth.
Away from the front action, there was joy for Williams and Russell- making Q3 on the medium tyre (the optimum starting tyre for the race, with many of those around him starting on softs), and not just settling for tenth, but qualifying ahead of Stroll. Furthermore, a penalty for Vettel would elevate him to P8, fulfilling many hopes and dreams.
A very tasty qualifying would simply be an appetizer before a juicy race.
“We lost an opportunity to be P5, P6, on the grid, and a different race, so now I guess we will not score points tomorrow. Whatever penalty they give to the others is not enough.” - Fernando Alonso
“As Saturdays go, this was on another level to be honest. We were debating before the session whether to do that Q2 lap on the softs or the medium. We were very worried to get through to Q3 on the softs because we presumed a lot of guys would be doing the mediums.” - George Russell
"I feel epic. Yeah, it was cool. I guess after the last race, I wanted to do that one more step and I did two more...it's probably one of my best laps." - Lando Norris
The Race...
Whilst the cars at the back of the grid were to be expected, many of the midfield and front cars certainly looked as if they would provide us with a race to remember. To the orange army’s delight, the Dutchman they came to support would be on pole and in his mighty shadow would be the orange McLaren of Lando Norris. Red Bull had an immediate advantage with both cars in front of the Mercedes on the ideal starting tyre, so the race was definitely in Max Verstappen’s favour to win from pole again. There were, however, questions around Norris- would he be able to compete with the top cars, and give those around him some headaches? Mercedes definitely preferred the predicted race conditions to that of quali on Saturday, when they had to tackle unfavourably warm conditions. Sunday on the other hand was cloudy with a decreased probability of 60% chance rain (despite rain being forecast throughout the week- something us F1 fans should be used to, but will never accept.)
Before the race even began, there was a heart-stopping moment for many of the Williams and George Russell fans. As he took his trip to the grid, the Brit looking for his first points with Williams reported a strong sense of worry towards the rear of the car. His mechanics swarmed the car to inspect the area, and only time would tell if there were any major issues, and at the very least his car pulled away for the warm-up lap.
The formation lap was predictably interesting due to the short circuit, and whilst Verstappen was gearing up his supporters out front by Turn 6, Haas had barely crawled through Turn 1. The grid filed into their slots relatively quickly, with the pole sitter and Norris angling their cars intimidatingly towards one another as the red lights came on…
The excitement and tension of the first lap was cut short when the drivers were obligated to slow down behind a released safety car. After yellow flags in Sector 1, the cameras eventually switched to Ocon’s Alpine, already parked at the side of the road in the grass by Turn 3. Replays showed the most unfortunate incident, where coming out of Turn 3 the Frenchman was sandwiched by Schumacher on his left and Giovinazzi on his right, who made contact with his right tyre and folded it in. Giovinazzi didn’t come off much better, pitting on Lap 2 and losing the ground he started on from P15. The one driver that may have benefitted from the safety car was George Russell- his stellar qualifying was also undone at Turn 3 and he fell from P8 to P12, so if he played his cards right and remained on the ball he could fight his way back into a points-paying position on the restart.
Max left it incredibly late to accelerate when the safety car pulled into the pits, but nevertheless he got a brilliant start which was only aided by a scrap between Lando and Sergio behind. Despite going wide at Turn 3, Perez was level-pegging with Norris down the straight, and it immediately went wrong when the second Red Bull risked an overtake on the outside of Turn 4. It’s been debated since as to whether the McLaren didn’t leave the Mexican enough space and pushed him into the punishing gravel trap, or whether Perez simply ran out of road and took a risk with no reward. Regardless of the fact Norris rightfully used the racing line and was ahead of Perez into the corner, an investigation into the incident landed Lando a “harsh” 5 second penalty a few laps later, a term even Red Bull’s Team Principal Christian Horner agreed with. This may not have been consolation for his driver however, who lost all his hard work in qualifying to find himself in P10.
At the same time, Giovinazzi was trying to recover lost places behind until he was dealt a second blow in his race- an investigation into a possible overtake before the safety car line. Eventually he was found guilty and dealt a 5 second penalty (a theme which would re-occur later- bringing back those Oprah Winfrey memes on Twitter…)
After a bit of battling and position switches between the Mercedes pair, Hamilton came out on top and sensing an opportunity following Perez’s misfortune, settled into the DRS zone of Norris ahead. Awkwardly, one of the reasons the multiple-time world champion struggled to overtake Norris was a loss of time in the straights when the McLaren uses a Mercedes engine. Norris also excelled in the last two corners, setting himself up beautifully for a run down the straight into Turn 1 and extending the gap closed by Hamilton with DRS. Earlier in the week, Lando had jokingly stated there was damage to his talent after a spin, but his defence had Sir Lewis Hamilton complimenting him with “Such a great driver, Lando.” The Mercedes man finally got past on Lap 20 with a safer overtake round Turn 4… with his brakes apparently on fire. His focus would be to close down the large gap between him and Verstappen.
Tsunoda, meanwhile, was dished another 5 second penalty by the stewards for crossing the white line at pit entry. This would go on to be a heavily penalised race.
Many drivers who ran the softs had already begun to pit, but the pit stop window for the medium runners was also approaching after Lap 24. The front runners were content to stay out on track despite a few complaints of tyre-wear, and a reinvigorated Danny Ric who had battled to fifth was the catalyst for pit stops. Norris and Bottas pitted on the same lap (31), and with a penalty to serve it was unsurprising that Bottas emerged ahead of a frustrated Norris, both on the hards and still ahead of the midfield. Hamilton followed suit on Lap 32 to hold P2 with ease, and Russell also boxed having recovered some places since his unfortunate Lap 1. Lap 33 then called Verstappen into the pits, and with a strong enough advantage the Dutchman continued to reign the Red Bull Ring much to the fans’ delight.
In the wake of the first round of pit stops, the order was shook out so we could see placement more clearly. Russell still had moves to make from P14, and on Lap 38 dove down the inside of Lance Stroll. A bit further up the road was the battle for P6 consisting of Gasly, Ricciardo, Perez and Leclerc. More disaster was to come at Turn 4 when Leclerc attempted a similar move to Perez’s on Norris, and this sadly also ended with a trip for the Monegasque through the gravel. Unlike the earlier incident, the stewards jumped swiftly onto this occasion and Perez was penalised 5 seconds. As Perez had already pitted onto the hards, it was likely his penalty would be added on after the race. On Lap 47 the duo repeated their hard (or harsh?) racing with Leclerc losing out again when he was forced into more gravel at Turn 6. A few laps later, the stewards slammed Perez with a second 5 second penalty to bring his total to ten- certainly damaging for Red Bull with two Mercedes cars on the podium.
Speaking of the Mercedes, they were failing to catch a controlling Max Verstappen and we heard over the radio why when damage to Hamilton’s car due to curbs was mentioned. His teammate Bottas was initially told not to attack, but a couple of laps later the narrative changed- they were free to race! But then the tale changed again, and the two cars simply switched under team orders. Hamilton’s lack of pace likely due to floor damage and aging tyres cost him another position when Norris overtook him for the final podium place, but Mercedes soon called Lewis into the pitlane to boot on some fresh hard tyres. With a comfortable gap to the midfield, Hamilton could logically strive for the bonus point accompanying the fastest lap. Trailing Verstappen in the race and the championship, the defending champion would need every point and opportunity.
Another man chasing points was George Russell in P10. Even one point would be a golden nugget for Williams, and F1 fans would certainly go wild.
A win would not be enough for Red Bull and Verstappen- thinking of the drivers’ and constructors’ championship, they decided to pit Max on Lap 61 for hard tyres also. Max would not want Lewis to escape with that precious, possibly championship-deciding, bonus point. Later on he would be told to preserve the car and simply maintain his lead.
A juicy but nail-biting multi-lap battle between Alonso, championship winner, and Russell, promising future championship winner, was also ongoing. With 1918 (now 1919) career points, fans across the F1 community were desperate for Alonso to just give George his first point with Williams. But we all know racing can be cruel, and a driver’s job is to get those wins for the team, so with just 3 laps to go Alonso snatched that last point for P10.
Back up ahead, Verstappen would claim his first grand slam (no, I’m not talking about tennis- it’s a pole position, win, fastest lap, and every lap led award) with Bottas earning his first P2 of the season and Lando earning his fourth podium- his third this year and second at the Red Bull Ring. Hamilton would manage to hang on to P4, with Sainz advancing to P5 after Perez’s ten second penalty.
The drama wasn’t over for the onlookers or the race stewards! Raikkonen and Vettel crashed out into that gravel and was seemingly caused by Raikkonen. The stewards agreed, and after the race handed Kimi a 20 second penalty. A further 9 drivers were also investigated after the race conclusion.
Russell was questioned over moving under braking, but no action was taken.
Mazepin, Latifi, Perez, Ricciardo, Leclerc, Gasly, Giovinazzi and Sainz were questioned along the lines of failing to respect double-waved yellows. Only Latifi and Mazepin were penalised, with a mighty 30 seconds.
After two weeks in Austria and a triple-header, us F1 fans and the teams have a week’s break (or crisis, depending on who you ask) before we head to Silverstone. With an exciting first edition of sprint qualifying and the three British drivers hoping to impress in front of another full-capacity crowd, we can certainly expect another amazing weekend. We’ll also hear the “Hamilton Straight” on TV for the first time. The British crowds will certainly be hoping that the man it's named after will deliver.
Comments