1 Verstappen rewards Red Bull’s commitment
“This was our most dominant win this season,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner with some satisfaction after Max Verstappen crossed the Red Bull Ring’s finishing line 35.743s ahead of Lewis Hamilton. But it wasn’t this margin – exaggerated by Hamilton’s late stop for soft tyres to bag the point for fastest lap – which defined Red Bull’s superiority over Mercedes in the Styrian Grand Prix. Not only was this the team’s fourth consecutive victory, Verstappen seemingly had pace to spare throughout, routinely able to lap up to a quarter of a second faster than Hamilton.
Events in Austria served to define both the current state of play between F1’s two leading teams and indicate where they may go from here as Mercedes revealed that it has in effect ceased development on the W12 to focus on next year’s car. Red Bull continues to lavish resources upon the
RB16B – there was talk of five vans with new parts at this event alone – and is reaping the benefits of living for the now. Verstappen and Hamilton started on the front row but the Mercedes was huffing and puffing to keep up from lap one, later almost spinning off at Turn 4 as the pitstops approached.
The question for Merc to ponder afterwards was whether it had erred in pursuing what engineering director Andrew Shovlin described as a “fairly wacky” setup to improve single-lap pace at the potential expense of greater tyre degradation.
“That was a bit of a lonely race,” said Hamilton afterwards. “We need to find some performance.”
Verstappen led by 5.5s when Hamilton stopped to swap medium Pirellis for hards at the end of lap 28, and he remained ahead after making his own stop a lap later. When Hamilton attacked, Max lifted his pace and began to pull away again. “As soon as we stopped to go on the hard, honestly that was a really enjoyable stint just to drive,” said Verstappen.
Neither driver’s team-mate figured in the battle for the lead, such as it was. A three-place grid penalty for spinning in the pitlane dictated that Valtteri Bottas start fifth after an impressive qualifying lap, while Sergio Pérez couldn’t quite make the most of starting on the soft tyres, overtaking Lando Norris’s third-placed Mclaren on lap one before getting boxed in behind Hamilton and conceding the place.
It took Pérez 10 laps to dispatch Norris, by which time the leaders had broken clear, and Sergio fell behind Bottas after pitting on lap 26, delayed by a right-rear which did not want to be parted from his car. A second stop for set of medium tyres on lap 54 enabled him to gobble up a 20s margin to Bottas but he just ran out of time to challenge for third.
2 Ferrari recovers and spoils Mclaren’s party
When Charles Leclerc deranged his front wing on the left-rear wheel of Pierre Gasly’s Alphatauri on the run down to Turn 3 on the opening lap, it looked like Ferrari was set to concede more ground to Mclaren in the battle for third in the constructors’ championship. Carlos Sainz had qualified 12th and was running 11th while the Mclarens of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo were in P3 and P9.
Leclerc’s error was damaging since he’d arguably outperformed the car in qualifying to start seventh, while Sainz had struggled for feel and confidence on his front tyres and been eliminated in Q2. But after pitting for a new front wing and a set of hardcompound tyres Leclerc flew back into contention from the tail of the field to finish seventh.
“One of my best performances in F1, apart from the first lap,” was Leclerc’s summary.
Sainz had a quietly impressive race as he made his first set of tyres last until lap 41 – four laps after Leclerc’s second stop – to emerge in seventh, though this owed a little to Fernando Alonso’s Alpine having to slow for blue flags as Lewis Hamilton came through the field. Sainz made short work of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin for sixth but had to spend 15 laps behind Hamilton as the Merc’s tyres started to struggle. Aided by DRS and some background negotiations between the Ferrari and Mercedes pit wall, Sainz got by and set off in pursuit of fifth-placed Norris but fell 6.962s short.
Ricciardo had a disappointing race after gaining four positions on the first lap, only to lose them when he lost power and had to perform a system reset. That consigned him to a frustrated spot in the midfield DRS train behind Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel, finishing outside the points.
3 Pneumatic failure costs Williams a potential top-10 finish
“Racing can be cruel,” said George Russell after a power unit problem forced him to retire from the Styrian GP. Russell had put in an excellent qualifying performance to come within one hundredth of a second of putting his Williams through to Q3 – then started 10th anyway when Yuki Tsunoda was handed a three-place penalty for impeding.
Following the collision between Gasly and Leclerc, Russell ran in eighth behind Alonso’s Alpine but was informed via radio that he would be “moving to Plan B for reliability”. A long stop followed on lap 25 as the team topped up the car’s pneumatic pressure. This failed to remedy the issue and a lap later Russell had to return for more attention. He retired on lap 36. “I think P7 was possible, I was quicker than Alonso,” Russell said.
RACE DATA
Venue Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit
First GP 1950
Number of laps 52
Circuit length 3.66 miles Longest straight 0.49 miles Race distance 190.262 miles Lap record 1m27.369s Lewis Hamilton (2019)
F1 races held 55
Winners from pole 20
Pirelli compounds C1, C2, C3
CAR PERFORMANCE Downforce level High Cooling requirement Medium Full throttle 66%
Top speed 199mph Average speed 153mph
TIMETABLE (UK TIME)
Friday 16 July
Practice 1 14:00-15:30 Qualifying 18:00-19:00 Saturday 17 July
Practice 2 12:00-13:00
Sprint Qualifying race 16:30-17:00
Sunday 18 July
Race 15:00
Live coverage Sky Sports F1 and Channel 4