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Formula 1

Winners and losers from F1’s Austrian Grand Prix

by Valentin Khorounzhiy
6 min read

A comfortable Austrian Grand Prix win took Max Verstappen’s points lead beyond 30 as Lewis Hamilton’s misery was compounded by damage that left him resigned to a survival race.

But Verstappen’s ‘rear gunner’ didn’t cover himself in glory, while further down the field a long-awaited milestone went begging.

Here are our winners and losers from F1’s second Red Bull Ring race in 2021.

Winners

Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen Red Bull F1 Austrian GP

A dominant victory to make it three wins in three weeks with such a big advantage that he could easily make an extra pitstop to make sure of fastest lap.

In the process, he took a ‘grand slam’ of pole, all laps led and fastest lap, which he hadn’t managed before. – Edd Straw

Lando Norris

Lando Norris McLaren F1 Austrian GP

The five-second penalty for contributing to Sergio Perez’s visit to the gravel at Turn 4 looked to have cost him a podium, but Norris drove another strong race, passing the struggling Lewis Hamilton and bagging a fourth top-three finish in F1.

His personal highlight would’ve been the front row start on Saturday, but though a third place is nothing new to Norris at this point, the sheer pace in his McLaren relative to the Mercedes duo will surely serve as a particular morale-booster. – ES

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso Alpine F1 Austrian GP

Four consecutive weekends now Alonso has comfortably shaded team mate Esteban Ocon. He is beginning to look very much like the fighting Alonso of old and but for the Vettel incident in qualifying he’d surely have made Q3 and raced strongly from there.

As it was he had to be satisfied with taking a point from George Russell’s Williams but he set about that task with all the attack and fervour of a vintage battle with Hamilton or Kimi Raikkonen from his glory years.

If Alpine can give him the car next year, he’s going to be a factor. – Mark Hughes

Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz Ferrari F1 Austrian GP

As the only driver to start on hards, Sainz’s first stint was always going to be key.

After emerging ninth following his pitstop, he passed Yuki Tsunoda, Charles Leclerc (with assistance) and Daniel Ricciardo, and managed to be just within Perez’s 10s penalty window, giving him fifth place from 10th on the grid. – ES

Losers

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Austrian GP F1

This was a depressing weekend for the champion. He saw Red Bull’s ascendancy very much confirmed and even had a McLaren get the better of him in both qualifying and race. His race was further compromised by aero-costing bodywork damage.

His pre-weekend simulator session didn’t provide him the answers he sought – and he’d reverted to what he already had. But it’s not looking like it’s going to be enough, as things stand.

He will doubtless have been extra dismayed to see yet more new aero parts on Verstappen’s Red Bull. – MH

Sergio Perez

Sergio Perez Red Bull Austrian GP gravel after fighting Lando Norris

Perez is reliably closer to Verstappen than either of his previous Red Bull team-mates, although whether he is close enough to be satisfied with is a different matter (0.270s off a less-than-ideal Verstappen pole lap at a short track like this certainly leaves room for improvement).

But considering how good an opportunity he had here to take some points off the Mercedes cars, not to do so was pretty unforgivable – and the drive itself was reminiscent of certain Pierre Gasly/Alex Albon low points, as well as Perez’s own dark patch during his weird intra-team warfare with Esteban Ocon at Force India.

The Norris overtake attempt that compromised his race early on was impatient at best, and a pretty egregious error at worst. The first incident with Leclerc was all around dreadful, and he really shouldn’t get a pass for the second one either. – Valentin Khorounzhiy

George Russell

George Russell Fernando Alonso Williams Alpine F1 Austrian GP

The faces in the Williams garage said it all: there’s no consolation for losing out on a first point of the season just a few laps from the finish.

It’s hard to fault much of Russell’s drive, depending on how much of his first-lap slide you hold him responsible for. Sometimes a driver can do little to avoid ending up on the wrong part of track and half a lap of misery can easily follow when that happens.

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After that, Russell executed his strategy as well as possible so when it all shook out between the one- and two-stoppers in the midfield he was 10th. In the closing stages, holding off Alonso in a much faster Alpine seemed like an effort doomed to fail.

So it was. For Russell it was a heroic failure – he gave it everything and put up a very stern and strong defence.

But for him and the team this is a loss. Two races in which they had serious top-10 prospects have passed without a points finish and so the wait goes.

There are positives within this but none that can make anyone pretend this isn’t a disappointing result. – Scott Mitchell

Esteban Ocon

Esteban Ocon Alpine F1 Austrian GP

Was Ocon particularly to blame for his opening-lap exit here? It didn’t look that way, no.

But it meant that he was immediately denied a chance to end a pretty rotten double-header on a high note, having been knocked out in Q1 and roundly outperformed by Alonso in both weekends.

There’s probably something underlying going on – you’d hope – but as it stands Ocon is going through something of an inverse new-contract bounce, having just been extended by Alpine through 2024. – VK

Aston Martin

Lance Stroll Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin F1

There’s a degree to which Aston Martin’s failure to score in the Austrian GP was a harsh punishment for being quick on Saturday, as reaching Q3 on softs meant Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel were effectively doomed to a losing battle against cars starting on mediums that could one-stop.

Vettel in particular did his best to still make it work and did charge back towards the points (although he was unlikely to end up where Alonso did) before his race ended in that bizarre collision with Kimi Raikkonen. Lance Stroll didn’t look like his race was going to offer anything even before his pitlane speeding penalty.

Gasly’s result showed you could score on a two-stopper, though, so Aston Martin’s poor Sunday wasn’t totally out of its hands. – Matt Beer

Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri F1 Austrian GP

Crossing the white line on pitlane entry or exit is a rare occurrence in F1 but it’s at least kind of understandable when it’s a tiny margin, given how difficult visibility is in these cars.

Tsunoda getting pinged twice in the same race for crossing the white line on pit entry, pretty blatantly, is really surprising and disappointing.

It might seem a bit of a stretch to say it shows Tsunoda needs to have a bit more focus or concentration about his performance in races but it fits in with the trend of him lacking composure at times.

So it’s not that Tsunoda didn’t finish in the points, because AlphaTauri’s strategy always seemed doomed to turn an excellent qualifying result into a worse finish. It’s that Tsunoda fell foul of such a basic error and then repeated it so soon after.

Add that to finishing so far behind team-mate Gasly on the road, and it’s not been an impressive day for the rookie. – SM

 

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