Woo! The Austrian Grand Prix is here and a home grand prix for my team Red Bull. I have to say I LOVE Max’s helmet. No, that sounds wrong. Max’s lid, actually, that sounds wrong too. You know what I mean! Let’s have some facts then! The circuit length is 4.318km and includes 10 turns. The circuit opened in 1969. The first F1 race was held the next year in 1970. It has held 38 races since. Valtteri Bottas holds the track record with a time of 1:02.939 and he achieved this in 2020. Carlos Sainz holds the lap record with a time of 1:05.619 in the same year. Verstappen holds the record for the most wins in Austria with a total of five. Four drivers on the current grid have previously won a Grand Prix at this circuit. They are Max, Lewis, Leclerc, and Russell. The longest streak of different winners at the Red Bull Ring came between 1970 and 1977. During that period, eight different drivers won. McLaren and Mercedes are tied for the most wins at the track. Ferrari has the most podiums. So with that being said Let’s see how the weekend unfolded!
The start of the qualifying hour was delayed by five minutes. This was due to multiple crashes in F2. A lot of debris was left on turn 3 because of a final lap shunt. Lando was flying through all three sessions in qualifying. He was setting purple sectors everywhere. It was no surprise that the British driver claimed pole position for the main race with a time of 1:03.971. Leclerc took the last remaining space on the front of the grid claiming second and Piastri follows in P3. Old team mates Lewis and George rounded up the top five placing in fourth and fifth. George was however being investigated after for an unsafe release. Gasly spun at the final corner during Q3. This disrupted Piastri for his final lap. Max bailed out of his second push lap in the final session. It was a great three rounds for some rookies achieving their best qualifying positions. Lawson put in an outstanding lap and claimed sixth position on the grid. Bortoleto also achieved amazing results for Sauber and took eighth position on the grid for Sundays race.
It wasn’t a good qualifying result for Yuki as he only achieved P18. Do we think he will make it till the end of the season for Red Bull? I’m not so sure. It makes you wonder. If Hadjar continues with the results he’s achieving, where would they put Tsunoda? Lawson is also trying to keep up the progress he’s been making. At the moment he isn’t doing very well. I looked at how many top 10 finishes he got last season for VCARB. He had a total of 9 out of 24 races. Now if we look at Hadjar so far in his first season, he has achieved 5 top 10 finishes. This is out of 11 races. Hadjar is now on 21 points for this season. Tsunoda finished the 2024 season on 30 points. There’s only a 9-point difference currently. Additionally, there are 13 races left to go. Liam is currently on 12 points. He needs only 18 more points in the rest of the season to draw with Yuki’s 2024 result. I’m not taking it away from the fact that Yuki can drive. He has been in the sport for a while. Considering that he is still young, you would expect to see some improvement by now. I don’t think he will be out of F1 completely after this season. However, I do wonder if he will still be driving for Red Bull.
Honestly, I hate this race, but you can probably guess why but let’s take it back to the beginning.. oh wait. We got off to a smoky start. This was even before the lights went out. Sainz’s Williams was stuck on the grid. Not long after him being able to get his car going again, his brakes were on fire and a 10 minute aborted start was announced reducing the race distance by one lap. Cars now lined up for a second time on the grid and the lights go out. Norris gets a good start but it’s the drama behind him that steals the spotlight. Antonelli went full torpedo into Turn 3. He locked up and took Max out of his home race. To say I was livid was an understatement. Obviously this caused for a safety car to come out. I’ll be honest. Sainz and Max are my two favourite drivers. I didn’t pay too much attention to the rest of the race. I wasn’t really watching it for anyone. I sound like such a sore loser but I say to people I’m just passionate and the fact that I rushed home for that mess as well!
The battle between Norris and Piastri is what kept things interesting throughout. The pair as always this season have been let loose to race it out between them for the top spot. With both drivers performing well this obviously makes it harder to call who gets to pit first and these race was no exception. Fortunately, Norris pitted first in this race. Oscar opted to go longer for a potential tyre advantage later. Through no fault of his own this cost the Australian driver due to the fact that Colapinto blocked him on the pit exit. This gave Norris a comfortable gap and the leader of the race. Despite with 10 laps to go and and Piastri slashing down the time to only 1.3 seconds between him and Norris, it just wasn’t enough. Norris takes the win, with him in a respectable second place. Leclerc took third place. Hamilton came in fourth and Georgy Porgy was fifth. Lawson impressively finished in sixth. Alonso was seventh. Another impressive result was Bortoleto finishing in eighth. In ninth, we have Hulkenberg. Ocon completed the top 10.
Overall, it’s a race I’d quite like to forget. It was nice to see some new faces score some points in the top 10. I have been in two minds whether to post this recap. I’m well aware we are now into the weekend of Silverstone. You, as well as I, will be watching the action that takes place there. However, I haven’t missed a race recap yet this season. So, I’ve pushed myself to get this finished despite a mentally tough week. I really wanted to go to Silverstone this year. I thought it would be an event not to miss due to their 75 years celebration. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone to go with. I also do not have the guts to go on my own! I’m sure it’s going to be a brilliant weekend. It’s always a fun race to watch. Maybe we will aim to go next year instead! I think it’s very clear now that the championship is between Norris and Piastri. We’ll see how it plays out for the rest of the season. It would have been nice to see some different teams in the running but hopefully the rest of the season won’t be boring!
Current Drivers Standings
| POS. | DRIVER | NATIONALITY | TEAM | PTS. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oscar Piastri | AUS | McLaren | 216 |
| 2 | Lando Norris | GBR | McLaren | 201 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | NED | Red Bull Racing | 155 |
| 4 | George Russell | GBR | Mercedes | 146 |
| 5 | Charles Leclerc | MON | Ferrari | 119 |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | GBR | Ferrari | 91 |
| 7 | Kimi Antonelli | ITA | Mercedes | 63 |
| 8 | Alexander Albon | THA | Williams | 42 |
| 9 | Esteban Ocon | FRA | Haas | 23 |
| 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | GER | Kick Sauber | 22 |
| 11 | Isack Hadjar | FRA | Racing Bulls | 21 |
| 12 | Lance Stroll | CAN | Aston Martin | 14 |
| 13 | Fernando Alonso | ESP | Aston Martin | 14 |
| 14 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | Williams | 13 |
| 15 | Liam Lawson | NZL | Racing Bulls | 12 |
| 16 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | Alpine | 11 |
| 17 | Yuki Tsunoda | JPN | Red Bull Racing | 10 |
| 18 | Oliver Bearman | GBR | Haas | 6 |
| 19 | Gabriel Bortoleto | BRA | Kick Sauber | 4 |
| 20 | Franco Colapinto | ARG | Alpine | 0 |
| 21 | Jack Doohan | AUS | Alpine | 0 |
Have you ever been to the Silverstone Grand Prix?
Amy x
littlemissminor.com 