A burning Ferrari, a great Schumacher and a great performance by Leclerc and both Mercedes! How did the Austrian Grand Prix end?

Formula 1 had its eleventh race of the season on the agenda today, Sunday 10 July. Despite expectations, the Austrian Grand Prix offered a somewhat surprising winner. Max Verstappen’s pace was very poor, Mick Schumacher scored more points, and Sainz’s Ferrari burned up. So what results did the Austrian Grand Prix bring?

The failure of all predictions as to the winner of the race – that’s probably a safe way to interpret the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring.

In the attached Twitter post below, however, you can see what the starting grid looked like before all five lights went out.

And the first lap of the Austrian Grand Prix already produced some very dramatic moments, with Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) and George Russell (Mercedes) colliding in the battle for third place at Turn 4.

It should be noted that it is very difficult to overtake in this corner and although the Mercedes driver hit the apex and did practically everything right, the race directorate somewhat surprisingly gave him a penalty of 5 seconds.

The Mexican Pérez pitted at the end of the first circuit and dropped hopelessly to last place in the race. Apart from him and Cunody, Chou, Alonso and Vettel, who were wearing hard tyres, the rest of the field wore medium specification tyres.

Verstappen, Leclerc, Sainz, Russell, Ocon, Magnussen, Hamilton, Schumacher, Ricciardo, Norris – this is what the top ten order looked like after the opening three laps of the Austrian Grand Prix.

On lap eight, Lewis Hamilton made a minor mistake on the kerb at turn one and dropped to eighth place behind Mick Schumacher. Four laps later, Russell served his five-second penalty.

And on lap 12, Ferrari fans were able to rejoice. For Charles Leclerc took the lead for the first time in this race ahead of Verstappen. It should be noted that at the start of the next lap, the Dutch driver went to his mechanics for a tyre change.

At the stroke of the fifteenth lap, the drivers began to pit for a change to the hardest set of tyres marked in white.

Fans were treated to an absolutely beautiful battle on lap 24, when five drivers fought for positions! Namely Kevin Magnussen, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, Kuan-yu Zhou and Schumacher.

The Danish Haas driver (Magnussen – editor’s note) was the winner of this awesome battle, but not for long. A few laps later he was overtaken by Norris in the McLaren and captured his seventh place.

On lap 26, a conservative decision was made by Red Bull, which was running its home race in Austria. Pérez had no chance of any significant success as a result of his first-lap accident, so the team withdrew him from the Austrian Grand Prix.

However, at this time some drivers pitted again, one of them being race leader Leclerc, but this was only his first stop. The tyres were simply taking a beating on the Red Bull Ring. After stops by Leclerc and Sainz, both Ferrari drivers returned to the track behind Verstappen.

Hamilton also made his stop on lap 29, but due to a longer pit-stop, he subsequently found himself behind the Ocon – Stroll pairing, in sixth place. However, Hamilton then managed to pass Esteban Ocon, with Lance Stroll pitting on lap 30.

Hamilton has now dropped back to fourth place. Ferrari set a very solid pace during the Austrian Grand Prix, with Leclerc even a full second faster than the first Verstappen on lap 31.

Carlos Sainz also had a great pace on lap 32, even 1.3 seconds faster. And while Sainz continued to close the gap on Verstappen, Leclerc, second, overtook the race leader for the second time on lap 33.

Verstappen became the first man to make his second pit-stop on lap 37. But there were no surprises as the reigning world champion put on a hard set of tyres.

A very bad Sunday for AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly, who firstly received a five-second penalty for breaking track limits and on lap 40 he received another, albeit equal, time penalty for causing a collision with Sebastian Vettel.

It should be added, many drivers received warnings for breaking track limits during the Austrian Grand Prix. Another one was Brit Norris, who served his penalty on lap 45, after which he dropped to 14th place.

On laps 50 and 51, both Ferrari drivers pitted, Leclerc first, then Sainz. Of course, they both dropped behind Verstappen after the pit-stop, who regained the race lead.

The 24-year-old Monegasque, however, was once again pulling the Austrian Grand Prix leader back significantly, and meanwhile, after Nicholas Latifi retired from the 11th race of the season in the Williams, Leclerc overtook Verstappen for the third time.

At the time of the overtake, however, Leclerc had 15 laps fresher tyres. As Verstappen said in his post-race interview, the tyres on his Red Bull were simply suffering.

Thanks to many pit stops, Russell in the Mercedes climbed to seventh, but was stuck behind the Alpine cars for the next few laps. However, Alonso and Ocon were gradually overtaken by the British driver and moved up to fourth behind teammate Hamilton. Although he was less than 18 seconds behind his teammate at the end of the race.

The fans witnessed a shocking moment on lap 58 when Sainz suffered an engine failure while attacking second-placed Max Verstappen. The Spanish racer shut down his Ferrari in the area of Turn 4.

But it was then that a dangerous moment occurred. Based on the footage so far, it looked like Sainz was unable to get his car in gear enough to keep it stationary. And that wouldn’t have been such a big problem if Sainz’s Ferrari hadn’t subsequently caught fire.

Leclerc, Verstappen and Hamilton all used the virtual safety car mode to pit stop. The order at the front, however, remained unchanged over the last ten laps.

Leclerc can celebrate his third win of the season, and interestingly, the Ferrari driver won the first race of his F1 career without starting from pole position.

Norris in the McLaren still showed a solid pace at the end of the race, moving ahead of Magnussen into seventh. And Alonso, who captured Valtteri Bottas’ tenth position at the end.

So that’s the top ten at the finish of the Austrian Grand Prix. Despite all predictions, Leclerc took the top spot and Hamilton can celebrate another podium. A five-second penalty resulted in a decent damage limit for Russell, and a very sensible drive and solid performance saw Schumacher take a great sixth place.

Source: F1 TV