George Russell provided a stroke of brilliance in Austria after a somewhat disappointing day one in Austria failing to get on the podium in the Sprint Race. Russell however found the pace to outshine the competition He said, “Incredible! That’s the only way I can describe it. We had a tough fight in the early stages to make sure we held on to P3. That would prove crucial at the end. I could see that Max (Verstappen) and Lando (Norris) were having a big battle. We were only just over 10 seconds behind the pair of them, which is really encouraging pace-wise.
I knew there was a possibility that they could come together, even if it was only a slim chance. You have to be there at the end to pick up the pieces and that’s exactly where we were. I am so proud to be back on the top step of the podium.
The team have done an amazing job to get us closer to the fight at the front. We have made so many strides since the start of the season. The last few races have been great and hopefully there is more to come. It’s no secret that Max and Lando are a little bit ahead of us at present but we’re now consistently putting ourselves in that third position. It’s an exciting time for us; we’re riding a bit of a wave, and I can’t wait to go to my home race at Silverstone next week and see what we can do there.”
Verstappen Hit With 10 Second Penalty
Despite his early season dominance with Red Bull. The Dutchman Max Verstappen seems to be a bit off of his game after a collision awarded him a 10 second penalty which dropped his finish to P5 in today’s grand prix in Austria. Verstappen ahd the following comments after the race.
“We were battling today and Lando tried to move around the outside, and then we touched with the rear tyres. It was very hot so immediately we had a puncture. From my side it seemed like a weird move but we obviously need to review this and of course we will talk about it. The shape of the corner also provides these kinds of issues sometimes and it is never nice to come together. This, however, isn’t currently my main focus as we need to take a look at the overall performance today and the difficulties we had with the car.
It was very hard to manage the tires, the first stint was not too bad and I had a fairly comfortable lead, the second stint was difficult; I think we stayed out a bit too long and then there was the issue with the pit stop. The overall Team performance wasn’t what we expected it to be and the strategy didn’t work that well in this case. It was a shame because of the lead that we had. There are definitely a few things we need to improve looking to next week and hopefully we can work on the performance, tires and balance.”
Austrian Grand Prix Results
| POS | NO | DRIVER | CAR | LAPS | TIME/RETIRED | PTS |
|---|
| 1 | 63 | George Russell | MERCEDES | 71 | 1:24:22.798 | 25 |
| 2 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 71 | +1.906s | 18 |
| 3 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | FERRARI | 71 | +4.533s | 15 |
| 4 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | MERCEDES | 71 | +23.142s | 12 |
| 5 | 1 | Max Verstappen | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 71 | +37.253s | 10 |
| 6 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | HAAS FERRARI | 71 | +54.088s | 8 |
| 7 | 11 | Sergio Perez | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 71 | +54.672s | 6 |
| 8 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | HAAS FERRARI | 71 | +60.355s | 4 |
| 9 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | RB HONDA RBPT | 71 | +61.169s | 2 |
| 10 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | ALPINE RENAULT | 71 | +61.766s | 1 |
| 11 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | FERRARI | 71 | +67.056s | 0 |
| 12 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | ALPINE RENAULT | 71 | +68.325s | 0 |
| 13 | 18 | Lance Stroll | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 14 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB HONDA RBPT | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 15 | 23 | Alexander Albon | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 16 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | KICK SAUBER FERRARI | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 17 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | KICK SAUBER FERRARI | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 18 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 19 | 2 | Logan Sargeant | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 69 | +2 laps | 0 |
| 20 | 4 | Lando Norris | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 64 | +7 laps | 0 |
Note – Albon received a five-second time penalty for crossing the line at pit entry. Norris received a five-second time penalty for leaving the track without a justifiable reason multiple times. Verstappen received a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision.