Formula 1

Verstappen dominates Austrian GP, Hamilton limps to fourth

by Matt Beer
8 min read

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Max Verstappen stormed into a 32-point Formula 1 world championship lead by claiming a third straight victory in the Austrian Grand Prix as title rival Lewis Hamilton slumped to fourth with car damage.

Verstappen was untroubled throughout the Red Bull Ring race, breaking clear initially as front-row qualifier Lando Norris kept his pursuers back.

The second Red Bull of Sergio Perez had attacked Norris on the outside at Turn 4 on the restart lap after an early safety car prompted by Esteban Ocon parking his Alpine with broken suspension from a first-lap brush with Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo.

Perez’s bid ended in a trip through the gravel that sent him back to 10th place, and allowed the Mercedes of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas – which swapped places twice in the opening laps – to move up to third and fourth.

The stewards ruled that Norris had forced Perez off the track and imposed a 5s time penalty that was announced just as Hamilton finally overtook the McLaren on lap 20. That penalty meant Bottas also got ahead of Norris when they both pitted.

Verdict: Were stewards right to penalise Norris and Perez?
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Hamilton was 9s away from Verstappen by the time he overtook Norris and then started losing pace in the second half of the grand prix, with Mercedes telling him floor damage was costing him aero performance.

The world champion was caught by both Bottas and Norris, with Mercedes initially asking Bottas to hold station – which prompted McLaren to urge Norris to attack.

But with Hamilton’s pace worsening, Bottas was allowed past and then Norris overtook Hamilton on track too.

Hamilton pitted immediately afterwards and retained fourth place, but in his hobbled car did not have the pace to recover any ground.

Verstappen had enough of a lead to make a precautionary second pitstop 10 laps from the finish and still win by 18s as Norris impressively clung on close behind Bottas right the way to the flag.

After his early brush with Norris, Perez was overtaken by Charles Leclerc while stuck in traffic. He jumped the Ferrari with an undercut at the pitstops, then picked up two 5s penalties for – ironically – being judged to have forced Leclerc off the road as the Monegasque tried to pass around the outside.

Perez finished fifth on the road but dropped to sixth behind Carlos Sainz when his penalties were applied.

Sainz had stayed out until lap 49 of 71 on his first set of hard tyres, then was allowed past Ferrari team-mate Leclerc before passing Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren on the road and then benefiting from Perez’s penalty.

Winners and losers from F1’s Austrian Grand Prix
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Ricciardo hung on for a morale boosting seventh from 13th on the grid. That was thanks to a strong first lap, gaining ground as two-stoppers came in and then fending off Leclerc to the end.

Pierre Gasly was the only one of the two-stoppers to make it back into the points, taking ninth, while his AlphaTauri team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was twice penalised for crossing the white line at the pit entry and ended up 12th.

The Aston Martins tumbled out of the points on the same strategy. Lance Stroll finished 13th but Sebastian Vettel collided with Kimi Raikkonen on the final lap.

George Russell and Williams’s wait for a point together goes on. He lost four places from eighth on the grid on the opening lap, but thanks to his one-stop strategy was back up to 10th in the closing stages before being overtaken by Fernando Alonso’s Alpine at the end of a long battle.

Race Results

Pos Name Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Honda 71 71 1h23m54.543s 1m06.2s 2 26
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 71 0 +17.973s 1m08.374s 1 18
3 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 71 0 +20.019s 1m08.471s 1 15
4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 71 0 +46.452s 1m08.126s 2 12
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 71 0 +57.144s 1m07.762s 1 10
6 Sergio Pérez Red Bull-Honda 71 0 +57.915s 1m08.192s 1 8
7 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren-Mercedes 71 0 +1m0.395s 1m08.82s 1 6
8 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 71 0 +1m01.195s 1m08.698s 1 4
9 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri-Honda 71 0 +1m01.844s 1m08.146s 2 2
10 Fernando Alonso Alpine-Renault 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.405s 1 1
11 George Russell Williams-Mercedes 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.9s 1 0
12 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri-Honda 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.455s 2 0
13 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Mercedes 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.659s 2 0
14 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 70 0 +1 lap 1m09.042s 2 0
15 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.52s 1 0
16 Nicholas Latifi Williams-Mercedes 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.874s 1 0
17 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin-Mercedes 70 0 +1 lap 1m08.42s 3 0
18 Mick Schumacher Haas-Ferrari 69 0 +2 laps 1m09.394s 1 0
19 Nikita Mazepin Haas-Ferrari 69 0 +2 laps 1m09.757s 2 0
Esteban Ocon Alpine-Renault 1 0 DNF 0s 0 0
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