Charles Leclerc claimed his first Formula 1 win since April in the Austrian Grand Prix, but Ferrari was denied a 1-2 by Carlos Sainz’s car catching fire.
Leclerc passed poleman Max Verstappen on three separate occasions in the grand prix, and Sainz was on course to follow through when he had his failure.
With Verstappen securing the bonus point for the fastest lap, he leaves Austria with a 38-point lead over Leclerc.
Unlike in the sprint, there was no attack for the lead at the start this time from Leclerc or Sainz, with Sainz instead having to squeeze George Russell to the inside on the run down to Turn 3 to hang on to third.
This left Russell vulnerable to attack from the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez, but the Mexican’s rather audacious attempt to go around Russell on the outside of Turn 4 ended with the Mercedes tapping him into a spin on corner exit, with Perez dropping down to last as he dug himself out of the gravel. No recovery drive would follow, with Perez ultimately retiring in the pits short of the halfway point in the race.
Out front, Leclerc just managed to stay within one second of Verstappen when DRS was activated on the third lap, and Leclerc made ample use of it in the subsequent laps to keep Versatppen under pressure.
A half-look at Turn 3 on lap eight overshadowed a proper attempt from the Monegasque at the same corner two laps later, but Verstappen enjoyed the better exit and stuck to the inside line on Turn 4 to successfully rebuff Leclerc.
Verstappen, however, told his team he “can’t hold him off this long” soon after that battle, and he was proven correct – with Leclerc executing a bold late-braking lunge down the inside of Turn 4 on lap 12 to move into the lead. Verstappen, sticking in DRS range and launching a counter-attack, then locked up massively at Turn 4 the following lap, and was immediately called into the pits for a switch to hards.
With the Ferraris not pitting, it took Verstappen until the 18th lap to get back into the top three, the Dutchman overtaking Lewis Hamilton on the run down to Turn 4 after a reasonably spirited defence from the Mercedes man at Turns 1 and 3.
As Verstappen made his way towards the duo, lapping around half a second to a second quicker, Leclerc was brought in on lap 26 – and Sainz, having run four seconds behind, followed suit a lap later.
It didn’t take long at all for Leclerc to get on the back of Verstappen again after the stop, and his second pass on the Dutchman was a considerably simpler one, enabled by DRS out of Turn 1. And with the Monegasque then managing to put a second and a half between himself and Verstappen over the rest of the lap, and Sainz closing in swiftly, Red Bull soon called Verstappen in for another stop.
But Verstappen made even less progress on fresher tyres this time, and after Ferrari brought in Leclerc again, he needed precious little time to catch up to the Red Bull and take care of him, this time with a ‘crossover’ outside-to-inside pass coming out of Turn 3.
LAP 58/71
Drama. An engine failure for Sainz. He's out of the race.#AustrianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/WDPKmvRxqm
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 10, 2022
It looked like a matter of time for Sainz, having again pitted soon after Leclerc, to pass Verstappen, too, but the Spaniard’s Ferrari suddenly slowed in Verstappen’s wheeltracks, spewing out smoke that then turned into raging flames, with Sainz nearly surrounded by them when he finally managed to climb out of his F1-75.
As the race resumed after a virtual safety car period – with both Leclerc and Verstappen taking advantage of it to switch to mediums – Leclerc experienced a sudden issue with his throttle pedal not retracting fully, setting up a nervy end to his race, but he held on to win by 1.5s.
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton had slipped behind Mick Schumacher with an early Turn 1 error but managed to then get ahead of both Haas cars before eventually settling into a lonely race. Though ending up 40 seconds off the race winner, he secured his third consecutive third-place finish, having started eighth.
Russell’s race was compromised by front wing damage and a five-second penalty, both coming out of the Perez collision, yet he recovered to pass Alpine’s Esteban Ocon soon after the virtual safety car period for fourth place.
Ocon settled for fifth, with Schumacher securing a career-best sixth, aided by an impressive pass at the penultimate corner on team-mate Kevin Magnussen.
Despite a five-second penalty for repeated track limits offences, Lando Norris passed Magnussen late on on the run down to Turn 4 for seventh, while team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was ninth.
Having started 19th after his Alpine’s failure before the sprint race, Fernando Alonso pitted under the virtual safety car and passed Valtteri Bottas – who had started from the pitlane – and the upgraded Williams of Alex Albon late on to claim a provisional point in 10th.
However, Alonso – who added to his personal highlight reel by passing Yuki Tsunoda after being forced onto the grass and waved a finger at the AlphaTauri man in the process of completing the overtake – is under investigation for his car having been potentially “released in an unsafe condition” after that late pitstop.
In addition to the Russell/Perez Turn 4 collision, there was a coming together between Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel at the same corner later, Gasly going deeper into the corner to tap Vettel into a spin and likewise assessed a five-second penalty, to go with a five-second penalty for track limits infringements.
Joining Sainz and Perez among the retirements was Williams driver Nicholas Latifi, who reported his car felt “massively damaged” before calling it a day.
