F1 Talk: Amazing Austria produces a Classic Race

My goodness what an amazing weekend the Austrian Grand Prix was. Not just the race but qualifying and even the practice sessions were dramatic and exciting. All culminating in a first Red Bull win of the year. It was F1 at its best.

For once, lets start with practice because even that was eventful.

There were no surprises in FP1 as Lewis Hamilton topped the practice session but then FP2 ended up in chaos and was more exciting than last week’s French GP! Seriously, it was.

Max Verstappen spun and hit the wall backwards at the final turn, Valtteri Bottas had a hefty shunt at turn six as he lost the rear end in the middle of the corner and smacked into the wall at quite a speed.

Then, Sebastian Vettel spun in a similar manner to Verstappen at the final bend but got away with it as he just avoided the tyre barrier. Charles Leclerc stayed out of trouble and was fastest but the 2.6 miles Red Bull Ring proved yet again that it is a proper drivers’ challenge and any small mistake would by punished. As it should be.

Saturday was more normal and the results from FP3 set up the prospect of an intriguing qualifying and it delivered. Mercedes appeared off the pace initially and even when they turned the engines up, they could not match Ferrari.

Hamilton received a 3-grid place penalty for blocking Kimi Raikkonen in Q1. The Brit did his best to get out of the way but the damage had been done and even though Raikkonen got through to next phase of qualifying, he was forced to do another lap. A fair penalty in my view.

We also saw Daniil Kvyat having to take evasive action at the penultimate corner after a queue of cars were backing up on each other to give themselves space for their lap. It was a hairy moment for Kvyat who had to go off the track to avoid hitting the Williams of George Russell who was on the racing line. Russell was correctly awarded a 3-grid place penalty.

At the climax of qualifying, Leclerc executed two laps quick enough to take a second pole position whilst Hamilton put in a great lap to qualify 2nd. His grid penalty meant Verstappen was promoted to the front row, making Leclerc-Verstappen the youngest ever front row in F1 history.

Sebastian Vettel suffered from a problem with the air-pressure line to his engine and could not take part in the final phase of qualifying and started down in 9th.

We were all set for a fantastic race with a mixed up grid and two young stars heading the field.

Track temperatures were over 50 degrees celcius throughout the weekend and they peaked on Sunday in the high 50s. In the preview to the race, the potential issue of heat being a weakness for the Mercedes came true. Although Hamilton showed signs of pace early on, he damaged his front wing towards the end of his first stint (presumably somewhere in the final two turns – it was not shown on TV). This meant, Hamilton lost around eight seconds at hit pitstop as the team changed the front wing.

Then, for both Hamilton and Bottas, they lacked pace compared to the Ferrari drivers and Verstappen on the hard tyre. Both Mercedes drivers were lifting and coasting into the corners to keep the temperatures down. It was very strange that they had to do is so much. We have seen before in Malaysia, Singapore and Bahrain in the turbo-hybrid era that Mercedes (if they do have a weakness) do not like the heat whereas Red Bull very much do.

In fact Red Bull have now won five of the last six ‘altitude races’ – Austria, Mexico and Brazil (if you count that Verstappen would have won in Brazil last year had he not been taken out by Esteban Ocon).

Race winner, Verstappen got off to a disastrous start as the car hit anti-stall immediately and dropped down to 8th on the opening lap. The 21-year-old even ended up behind teammate, Pierre Gasly.

He did not panic though and quickly went by Gasly and then overtook Raikkonen and Lando Norris to move into the top five. With Hamilton’s long pitstop, Verstappen had a free overtake but he was still over 15 seconds away from the lead with Vettel and Bottas in between himself and Leclerc.

With 10 lap fresher tyres, he managed the tyres perfectly and did not push too hard early on and got quicker and quicker as the race progressed. It took Verstappen a few laps to find a way past Vettel but he got the job done on the run down to turn four.

A defenceless Bottas with cooling issues gave way going into turn three and the race was on for the lead. Leclerc looked certain to win mid-race but Verstappen’s pace came from nowhere and he was inspired and spurred on by tens of thousands of passionate Dutch fans.

On average, he was taking 0.2-0.3 out of Leclerc’s lead and to be fair to Leclerc, the Monegasque driver was less fortunate when going through the traffic and caught cars at the wrong place.

The racing between the two of them prior to the incident was sensational, respect was given and it was clean racing between two current and future stars of the sport. My thoughts on THAT incident on the next lap can be found here – Opinion: Did Verstappen get away with a penalty?

Verstappen’s drive was supreme to say the least and the way Leclerc paced himself and defended on worn tyres before the lap 69 incident proved that Formula One is in very safe hands if they are both given cars capable of fighting for the championship over the next 10-15 years.

Both drivers are exceptional and I hope this is the start of many battles and fights to come.

Red Bull’s first win was a win for Honda too and it was brilliant to see Red Bull send Toyoharu Tanabe, Honda technical director, onto the podium.

Stats from the 2019 Austrian GP

• Youngest ever F1 podium with an average age of 24 years and 156 days
• Honda’s first win since Hungary 2006
• Verstappen has now won six races without a pole position
• Prior to Austria, Honda had only one win in 27 years in Formula One

Some will think that Ferrari let another race win go. Leclerc was told not to push early on, suggesting he had pace in hand and the potential to build up an even bigger lead. A mistake perhaps, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Ferrari also made a complete mess of Vettel’s first stop and miscommunication meant that the tyres were not ready and Vettel’s pitstop was twice as long as it should have been. Vettel’s strategy to do two pitstops is questionable too, luckily Vettel managed to overtake Hamilton during the final laps to salvage the strategy.

The fact is, Ferrari have still now won a race, when they could have won three (maybe four) Grand Prix. Bahrain should have been Leclerc’s win, then there was Canada and Vettel and now Leclerc missed out on the win yet again. Speed is in the car, the three pole positions show this but when it matters and when the win is on the cards – they have not been able to execute the perfect race.

Again, with hindsight, Ferrari pitted Leclerc too early but they had to cover off Bottas. At the time, it was the sensible thing to do as Verstappen was not even in contention for the win at that point of the race.

Ferrari also chose to start both of their drivers on the soft tyres and this was not a wrong decision. The Mercedes drivers plus Verstappen opted to start on the medium tyres but the soft tyre held up quite well on the Ferrari. Ferrari used to be so good operationally in the early 2010s but this has gone away in recent times.

In the midfield, McLaren had another excellent weekend with Lando Norris maximising the result and Carlos Sainz had a tremendous race after starting at the back. It’s a shame the TV director missed some of Sainz’s overtakes as his charge after his pitstop was hardly broadcast.

After the opening lap, Sainz made nine on-track passes – only one was broadcast I believe. He overtook: Romain Grosjean, Robert Kubica, Kevin Magnussen, Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez, Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen. FOM rightly (Formula One Management) decided to focus on Verstappen’s charge and incredible drive but they could have at least shown replays of Sainz’s overtakes or use a split-screen which was first used 20 years ago but does not get used in F1 anymore.

It was very poor directing, considering they also showed the Dutch fans too many times and showed at least five replays of Hamilton going wide at turn one. Anyway, F1 and the broadcasting side of things can be saved for another day.

Well done to Alfa Romero too who surprised many and scored a double points finish and got both cars into Q3. Antonio Giovinazzi became the first Italian driver to score F1 points since Vitantonio Liuzzi at the 2010 Korean GP.

Kimi Raikkonen did not crack under the pressure and held Pierre Gasly at bay for the majority of the race and lost out to Gasly and Sainz due to bad luck with the blue flags. Either way, it is great to see Alfa Romeo doing so well, considering the big step forward that Renault and McLaren have made in recent races.

What a spectacular weekend it was for F1. Strangely, Mercedes missed out on equalling McLaren’s record of 11 consecutive wins again and after a week of people calling F1 ‘boring’ and saying it is in ‘crisis’ the sport delivered spectacularly. It’s not the first time this has happened.

It was badly needed though and we were treated to a classic race, one of the greatest races in the V6 turbo-hybrid era and perhaps one of the greatest drivers this century. Thank You Austria, F1 proved why millions of people love it and why we still watch it.