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Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes 1-2 in the Styrian Grand Prix, a race less eventful than the previous week’s first Red Bull Ring event but which came alive late on.
Here’s how it all unfolded.
Pre-race: Though the wet qualifying session means a free choice on tyres, the majority still start on softs. Ricciardo and Vettel in eighth and 10th are the highest-placed starters on mediums.
Edd Straw: “Surprised to see all but six cars opt for softs. Shows that, having had the experience of last week, teams have realised they can run the softs without excessive management in the first stint so can benefit from the extra grip early on. Ricciardo and Vettel are the top medium runners.”
Start: Hamilton holds the lead, Sainz and Verstappen go wheel to wheel through the first corners before the Red Bull establishes itself in second.
Lap 1: The two Ferraris come together at the Turn 3 hairpin, with Leclerc crashing into Vettel as he tries to go down the inside. Vettel ends up without a rear wing. Both pit for repairs, but only Leclerc can rejoin. The safety car comes out.
Scott Mitchell: “That’s a rookie error from Leclerc and a disastrous start for Ferrari. Bad enough when your cars are slow, having them hit one another is just adding…well, injury to insult actually.”
Edd Straw: “Classic case there of Leclerc sending his car down a cul-de-sac. A low probability of that one working and it’s a disastrous misjudgement for Ferrari.”
Lap 1 order: 1 Hamilton; 2 Verstappen; 3 Sainz; 4 Bottas; 5 Albon; 6 Ocon; 7 Ricciardo; 8 Gasly; 9 Norris; 10 Stroll; 11 Russell; 12 Magnussen; 13 Kvyat; 14 Giovinazzi; 15 Perez; 16 Latifi; 17 Grosjean; 18 Raikkonen; 19 Leclerc
Edd Straw: “Russell had a good run through the first corner – inch-perfect side by side with Stroll – and was as high as ninth before getting shuffled back to his starting position of 11th.”
Lap 4: Racing resumes with Hamilton holding his lead. There’s fierce racing at the foot of the top 10 and it ends with Russell shooting through the gravel at the fast Turn 6 and dropping to 18th.
Edd Straw: “Russell was side by side with Magnussen into Turn 6 but there didn’t appear to be contact – he just tried to hang on around the outside and carried in too much speed. He apologised over the radio.”
Lap 5: Leclerc brings his car into the pits to retire too.
Lap 5: Stroll overtakes Norris for ninth.
Lap 7: Bottas takes third from Sainz but is already 7s behind leader Hamilton, who has a 2s gap to Verstappen.
Lap 7: Ricciardo is right behind sixth-placed Renault team-mate Ocon and letting Renault know over the radio that he feels he’s got more pace.
Lap 8: Albon is next to pass Sainz, demoting the McLaren to fifth.
Lap 13: Perez gets into the top 10 by passing Norris.
Edd Straw: “There’s a great front-of-the-midfield battle brewing here. The McLarens, Renaults and Racing Points all together – with Gasly in the thick of it after his strong qualifying.”
Lap 15: Ocon continues to fend Ricciardo off in what’s becoming a fraught intra-Renault battle for sixth.
Edd Straw: “Renault doesn’t appear to be intervening in this Ocon vs Ricciardo battle, but it’s now allowing Sainz in fifth to build an advantage so is counterproductive. But Renault has just warned Ocon that Stroll is becoming a threat and that the pace needs to be picked up.”
Lap 16: Stroll overtakes Gasly for eighth.
Lap 17: Gasly loses another place to a Racing Point as Perez takes ninth from him.
Lap 19: Hamilton sets a new fastest lap of 1m08.385s and gets his lead over Verstappen above 4s.
Lap 20: Ricciardo finally makes it past Ocon into sixth.
Scott Mitchell: “This isn’t a good showing from Albon, for whatever reason. He’s drifted into ‘Gasly Territory’ – so far behind in fourth he’s going to leave Verstappen completely vulnerable to Mercedes doing whatever it wants strategically. He needs to offer better back-up.”
Lap 22: Gasly falls outside the top 10 as Norris passes him.
Lap 24: Verstappen pits from second place and swaps from softs to mediums. He rejoins third ahead of team-mate Albon.
Lap 25: Ocon, who had stayed close behind Ricciardo in seventh, pits and retires.
Edd Straw: “Ocon asked what was going on and was told ‘we have a car problem that means we need to stop’. I’m sure he found that explanation illuminating but the team says it will tell him when he’s out of the car. It turns out to be a cooling problem.”
Lap 27: Hamilton pits from the lead and takes on mediums. He rejoins 5s ahead of Verstappen as Bottas moves into the lead.
Lap 29: Hamilton on his fresh tyres does a fastest race lap of 1m07.863s, 0.7s quicker than his yet-to-stop race-leading team-mate Bottas.
Scott Mitchell: “Verstappen says he doesn’t ‘get why we boxed’, but is reminded of the threat from behind as much as attacking Hamilton – so that early stop was to cover off Bottas. A pre-emptive defence rather than aggression.”
Lap 30 order: 1 Bottas; 2 Hamilton (pitted); 3 Verstappen (pitted); 4 Albon; 5 Sainz; 6 Ricciardo; 7 Stroll; 8 Perez; 9; Norris; 10 Kvyat; 11 Giovinazzi; 12 Raikkonen; 13 Magnussen; 14 Grosjean; 15 Latifi; 16 Russell; 17 Gasly (pitted)
Lap 32: Sainz pits from sixth. A problem at the left rear means it’s a slow, 7.2s, stop and he falls to 13th as he rejoins on mediums.
Lap 33: Stroll is the first Racing Point to pit, from what had just become sixth. He rejoins now ahead of Sainz and alongside the yet-to-stop Grosjean, who he fends off. Sainz swiftly passes the Haas.
Lap 34: Bottas pits from the lead. Hamilton had already closed to within 7s of him. He takes on mediums like the other leaders and rejoins third.
Lap 35 order after top three’s pitstops: 1 Hamilton; 2 Verstappen +4.8s; 3 Bottas +13.1s
Lap 35: Albon pits from fourth, switches to mediums and rejoins behind Ricciardo, Perez and Norris – who are all yet to stop.
Edd Straw: “Ricciardo tells the team he can hold a pace in the high 1m08s bracket with his well-used mediums.”
Lap 37: On his fresh mediums, Stroll quickly overtakes the yet-to-pit Alfas to move up to eighth, just 6s behind Albon.
Lap 37: Ricciardo pits from sixth place. He swaps mediums for softs and rejoins seventh between Albon and Stroll. Perez and Norris are now fourth and fifth, yet to stop.
Lap 38: Perez pits and goes to mediums, rejoining still behind team-mate Stroll but only just ahead of Sainz, who he resists after two corners wheel-to-wheel – completing the job around the outside of the fast Turn 5.
Edd Straw: “‘Did you like that one?’ Perez asks over the radio after his pass on Sainz. We certainly liked it – to do that on his out-lap for a position was superb. A great move from Perez that required great confidence.”
Lap 39: Leader Hamilton does a new fastest lap of 1m07.651s. He’s 5s ahead of Verstappen and 13s clear of Bottas.
Lap 39: Norris pits from a brief fourth place and falls to 10th, though Raikkonen ahead is still to stop – the only driver who hasn’t done so now.
Lap 40: Bottas beats Hamilton’s fastest lap with a 1m07.628s. That’s half a second quicker than both Hamilton and Verstappen that time.
Lap 44: Raikkonen makes his pitstop from ninth place. He takes on softs and drops to 14th, at the tail of a Kvyat, Gasly, Giovinazzi, Magnussen train chasing 10th.
Lap 46: Perez muscles past team-mate Stroll for sixth. Both are pursuing Ricciardo for fifth.
Edd Straw: “Perez has every chance of getting ahead of Ricciardo and might even have an outside shot at challenging Albon for fourth. This is a very good recovery from 17th on the grid.”
Order and gaps: 1 Hamilton; 2 Verstappen +4.9s; 3 Bottas +12.7s; 4 Albon +44.1s; 5 Ricciardo +48.9s; 6 Perez +50.1s; 7 Stroll +51.4s; 8 Sainz +55.8s; 9 Norris +1m02.7s; 10 Kvyat +1 lap
Lap 49: Perez breezes past Ricciardo into fifth.
Lap 50: Perez sets a new fastest lap of 1m07.578s and closes to under 4s behind fourth-placed Albon. Ricciardo is now under heavy pressure from Stroll for sixth.
Edd Straw: “Fourth place is not just very much possible for Perez, it’s looking likely given he’s cutting the gap to Albon.”
Lap 52: Hamilton’s lead over Verstappen starts to approach 6s.
Scott Mitchell: “Not for the first time in this race, Verstappen is complaining about performance in traction zones. This time it’s driveability out of Turn 3. He’s struggling to match the Mercedes.”
Lap 54: Another new fastest lap of 1m07.410s from Perez brings him to 1.1s behind Albon for fourth.
Lap 55: Bottas is told by Mercedes he’s on course to catch Verstappen on the final lap. They’re 6.8s apart right now.
Lap 58: Bottas – who pitted 10 laps later than Verstappen – is catching the Red Bull by half a second per lap. The gap is down to 4.8s.
Scott Mitchell: “‘Braking into Turn 3 is a disaster.’ says Verstappen. At this rate he’s going to have Bottas on his case right at the end of the grand prix. He’s been told to ‘cancel the pull toggle at Turn 3’ to try to help.
“Verstappen’s cause isn’t helped by him battling some front wing damage picked up a few laps ago. He might just about hold on but he’s been under gradually increasing pressure ever since the earlier-than-necessary pitstop.”
Lap 61: Norris has caught Sainz for eighth and is attacking his team-mate. McLaren asks them to swap places and Sainz does so.
Lap 62: Bottas is now within 2.5s of Verstappen for second.
Scott Mitchell: “Now Verstappen’s been told to try the ‘push toggle’. He can’t afford to give away a second per lap to Bottas like he did last time through. This is going in Bottas’s favour but he’ll still need to make the pass work.”
Lap 63: Another new fastest lap from Perez, a 1m07.396s, as he shadows Albon.
Edd Straw: “Perez has been given a bit of extra power to really go after Albon.”
Lap 65: Norris sets a new fastest lap of 1m07.286s and is now 2.7s behind Ricciardo and Stroll’s battle for sixth.
Lap 65: Bottas is now right on Verstappen’s tail.
Lap 66: Bottas goes down outside of Verstappen into Turn 3, and then passes for second on the next straight. But Verstappen hangs on around the outside of Turns 4 and 5 to take the place straight back.
Lap 66: Hamilton, now 13s clear, does a fastest lap of 1m07.018s.
Lap 67: Bottas attacks Verstappen for second again, and is again held off at Turn 3. But this time he makes it cleanly past on the following straight.
Scott Mitchell: “Mega resilience from Verstappen, but DRS is a joke. What’s the point of even trying to put a fight? The car behind just blasts past eventually. Not Bottas’s fault, of course. If the 2022 rules are going to be so great, DRS has to be dropped.
“DRS has been a necessary evil in F1 for a while, and often comes in for some stick unnecessarily. My big problem is it’s always been way too powerful. If it’s not dropped it needs a serious refinement.”
Lap 67: Sainz pits for new softs without losing ninth place.
Lap 68: Verstappen pits for fresh tyres too and a shot at fastest lap. He stays third as he’s comfortably clear of Albon.
Lap 70: Sainz bangs in a fastest lap of 1m05.619s, which stands as the race’s best.
Lap 70: Perez attempts to pass Albon for fourth, but picks up front wing damage as they bang wheels.
Edd Straw: “Racing Point ordered Perez to pit because he has serious front wing damage but he’s trying to make it to the flag.”
Lap 70: Stroll surges down the inside of Ricciardo for sixth at Turn 3 and takes them both wide, allowing Norris to get past Ricciardo too and attack Stroll.
Lap 71: As Hamilton and Bottas cruise home for a Mercedes 1-2, fifth-placed Perez’s damaged car is being caught by team-mate Stroll, Norris and Ricciardo.
Norris passes Stroll for sixth and then catches Perez at the final corner and snatches fifth at the Racing Point washes wide. Perez just makes it over the line ahead of Stroll and Ricciardo in a virtual photo finish.
Edd Straw: “While Perez lost fifth to Norris, he made a good decision not to follow the team’s order to pit. That ensured he didn’t lose more positions.”
Scott Mitchell: “Norris at the final corner! Yet again, final-lap heroics from the McLaren driver. What a brilliant effort to turn that into fifth. That’s superb.”
