F1 Review: Four talking points from the Austrian Grand Prix | GRR
Twenty minutes in, it seemed after all the heightened expectation caused by a four-month delay to the start of the 2020 F1 season, the Austrian Grand Prix was going to fall horribly flat. The newly black Mercedes were out front in a race of their own and Max Verstappen – the only driver who appeared to have a hope of beating them – was out.
But three safety car interruptions, the second pair following in short order, helped spark a dramatic final 16 laps in which Valtteri Bottas withstood reliability fears to claim a convincing victory, Lewis Hamilton found himself penalised for the second time in one afternoon and Britain’s Lando Norris snatched his first F1 podium from the world champion with a stunning last lap of the race. This was why we’ve been missing F1.
Under pressure Hamilton goes fourth
Less than an hour before the start, Lewis Hamilton found himself docked three grid spots following a stewards’ review, triggered by Red Bull, confirmed via new footage that he had transgressed yellow flag rules on his final qualifying lap on Saturday, when Bottas had inadvertently confirmed his own pole position after running off into the gravel at Turn 4. Instead of from the front row, Hamilton would now start fifth.
His face didn’t flicker in the pre-race formalities when six of his colleagues, including Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, chose not to take the knee as the drivers lined up in T-shirts that read ‘End Racism’. Even here, Hamilton went his own way, being the only one to wear a ‘Black Lives Matter’ shirt instead. Strong willed, independently minded and stubborn, these racing drivers.
The grid penalty was old news by lap nine, once Hamilton swept past Alex Albon’s Red Bull and chased after Bottas ahead of him, the duo lapping at a rate that confirmed Mercedes once again have a clear pace advantage over their opposition. A first safety car period, as Kevin Magnussen’s brakes failed at Turn 3, only briefly interrupted their flow – until alarming messages from the pitwall flagged up a “critical” gearbox issue for both cars. A new tension crept in as both were told to stay off the kerbs, and although a typically feisty Hamilton appeared marginally quicker than Bottas, the reliability fears suggested some race ‘management’ might be required to ensure a one-two in front of Mercedes’ big cheese and CEO, Ola Källenius.
It wasn’t to be. Two back-to-back safety car periods, the first for George Russell’s retirement and the second for Kimi Räikkönen’s alarming loss of a front wheel, brought Albon into contention. As Christian Horner put it, switching the Thai on to soft tyres compared to the Merc duo’s aging hards was “worth a punt” – and the gamble paid off brilliantly, as Albon swept around Hamilton’s outside at Turn 4 after the second resumption. Then Lewis’s front-left wheel tagged the Red Bull’s rear right and Albon’s first F1 podium hopes – and even a possible race win – turned to dust. Hamilton’s subsequent five-second penalty would drop him to fourth right at the flag as Bottas swept to an accomplished lights-to-flag victory.
At the start of last season, The Finn won with similar verve at the first race in Australia, but his season then faded into disappointment. This time, can he maintain this momentum and repeat what Nico Rosberg managed in 2016? The victory certainly ramps up the pressure on Hamilton for the Styrian GP this coming weekend, held at the same circuit and on which Bottas clearly excels. In a shortened season, the world champion can’t afford another relatively duff weekend – especially if the wind stays with his team-mate.
Albon is Red Bull’s perfect foil to Verstappen
No one can pretend Alex Albon is a potential match for Verstappen at Red Bull. So far, there’s no evidence he quite has that edge. But as he proved regularly last season and emphatically on Sunday, he’s accomplished enough to score serious points for his team and step up when his team-mate, for whatever reason, might falter.
The electrical problem that cost Verstappen a shot at a Red Bull Ring hat-trick would have elicited groans and perhaps even a mass exodus from his travelling orange army of Dutch fans – had they been present. Instead, the DNF robbed the global TV audience from finding out just how close Verstappen could have pushed the Mercedes, had he been allowed to play out his potential strategy advantage of starting the race on the slower medium tyres and finishing on the quicker softs. The three safety cars would certainly have kept him in range had he lasted beyond lap 11, and it was he rather than Albon who had been poised to pounce after those safety cars. Perhaps we’ll get another chance to see it play out this coming weekend instead.
As for Albon, he had every right to feel depressed and angry at Hamilton – for the second time in three races following their Lewis-induced collision in Brazil last year. Hamilton judged it a “racing incident” and it certainly wasn’t intentional. But it was avoidable, and it would have been a major injustice if the champion hadn’t copped a penalty.
Norris takes the next step
One minute he was struggling to fend off team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr., the next he was chasing a podium, pulling off a daring, decisive move on Sergio Perez and then chasing down the gap he needed to overhaul the penalised Hamilton. How he did so on the last lap, setting the fastest of the race at 1m 7.475s, was simply sensational to demote Hamilton a place by just 0.2s. Mercedes seemed frozen to the threat after such a race of tension and perhaps should have released Hamilton past his race-leading team-mate to protect his podium – then again, what if something had gone wrong and the switch had somehow cost Bottas his deserved win? Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Instead, we were treated to the sight of a young man taking the next step towards potential F1 greatness. The more we see of Norris, the more he seems to be the real deal.
Leclerc heightens the sense of Vettel’s decline
How Charles Leclerc lifted a shockingly recalcitrant Ferrari to second place, admittedly with the help of the demise of some running ahead of him, was also in its own way a sign of maturing potential. Scoring big in a great car is one thing; to do so in a plain slow one marks out the exceptional.
Two more points spring to mind when assessing Leclerc’s performance. First, what exactly did the FIA find on last year’s Ferrari for this year’s car to be so much slower at a circuit Leclerc claimed one of seven pole positions last term? Second, how will Sebastian Vettel hope to land another deal to keep his F1 career going if he doesn’t turn in a world champion’s performance in the next few weeks? On Saturday, he failed to progress beyond Q2. On Sunday, he made a desperate, ham-fisted dive into a gap that wasn’t really there in his chase of Sainz – the man who will replace him. The decline continues.
Does he even want a future in F1? At just 33, Vettel currently looks like he’s on the ropes – and in a Ferrari that won’t make it easy for him to prove the case is otherwise.
Austrian GP Highlights – F1 2020
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.