George Russell took the second victory of his career at the Red Bull Ring after taking advantage of an incident between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. Both cars suffered damage with the three-time world champion managing to recover to fifth place, while Norris was forced to retire.
Austrian Grand Prix Sprint Race Summary
This event included a Saturday sprint race, in which Verstappen took pole position and achieved another routine victory. Verstappen also swept to victory in the previous two sprint races held in Shanghai and Miami. During the sprint, the Dutch driver lost first place during the fifth lap when Norris found his way past, but Max fought back quickly. Soon after Verstappen retook the lead, Norris was overtaken by Oscar Piastri, with the final result remaining this way.
Feature Race Qualifying Summary
Max Verstappen took pole position for the main race, with his first pole position since the Imola round. Verstappen took pole with a lap of 1:05.336. He was four tenths ahead of Lando Norris. Third place was taken by Oscar Piastri, but his qualifying time was deleted after leaving the track during his fastest time with all four wheels outside track limits. In the end, third position on the grid for Sunday’s race was secured by George Russell.
Austrian Grand Prix Feature Race Summary
Sundays race was marked by an incident on lap 64th between Verstappen and Norris. In a battle for the lead, Max collided with Norris putting the British driver out of the race, with Verstappen sustaining damage and limping home to fifth place. Max considered this a racing incident, however with the outcome for Lando Norris it’s understandable the stewards decided to apply a 10 second penalty. For the second race in a row, Norris came very close to beating Verstappen who has been on a winning streak all season, and understandably he was very angry after the race.
While the two are friends off track, they don’t hold back when it comes to events while racing:
“It depends on what they say. If he says he did nothing wrong, I will lose a lot of respect for him. If he accepts that he was stupid and ran into me, then I’ll lose just a little bit of respect. It’s certainly difficult to accept, I fought for the victory”, Norris said.
Verstappen stated he is not guilty and that it is a common racing incident to occur as a result of a fight for the lead:
“You always question yourself, is it my fault, did I leave enough space. And it is clear that there will be discussions about it. I honestly think I left the option to Lando. However, the bottom line is to fight for the best possible position on the exit of the corner. You simply fight to win and that’s the way it should be”, Verstappen stated.
This incident became a massive advantage to George Russell who took the second victory of his career, the previous being in Sao Paulo during the race in November 2022:
“Incredible,” said Russell. “I think it was a tough fight out there at the beginning of the race just to hold onto that P3. “I saw on the TV that Max and Lando were going pretty hard, I knew Lando would want to try and get that race win, but the team have done an amazing job to get us in this fight. You’ve got be there at the end to pick up the pieces, and that’s where we were.”
Russell crossed the finish line 1.9 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri, while Carlos Sainz Jr. took third place.
The exciting fight between Verstappen and Norris came about after Red Bull made a slow pitstop on lap 51, with the stop taking 6.5 seconds to change tires. This allowed Norris into contention for the lead against the Dutch driver. Lando gave chase and very quickly closed the gap to under one second. Norris first tried an overtake on lap 59, but he braked too late in turn 3 and was unable to maintain the lead. A new battle occurred two laps later, but Max retained in the lead. During the next battle in lap 63, Verstappen ran wide and was able to retain the lead off track after Norris attacked him on the inside at turn three.
Just one lap later, the incident that would determine the final order of the race occurred. Lando approached the Dutch driver on the outside entering turn 3 with Max interlocking wheels, causing significant damage to both cars. Verstappen managed to change tires and recover to come home in fifth, while Norris sustained far too much damage and was forced to retire.
In the end, Max’s 10 second penalty did not affect his final placing.
The remainder of the points outside of the podium came from Lewis Hamilton, who finished the race in fourth place.
An excellent result also for Haas as Nico Hulkenberg drove a strong race for sixth with Kevin Magnussen eighth.
Sergio Perez took seventh place while Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly rounded out the points.
The next round is the 2024 British F1 Grand Prix on the 8th of July.
