The Austrian Grand Prix was a bit like the curate’s egg – parts of it were excellent. And by the same token – parts of it were deadly dull and boring.
It began with a five grid spot penalty for Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) for changing his gearbox after qualifying. This demoted him from 3rd to 8th. Quite frankly these grid position penalties are nonsense. The previous meeting Alonso was hit with a 40 place grid demotion, on a grid that has 20 positions. Brilliant thinking FIA.
And so 20 cars lined up for the start and when the lights went out pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) pulled the start of his life (his words, not mine) to lead the field away. Bottas’ start was so good it was thought initially he might have jumped the start, but he had not. It was just a “hole shot” where anticipation coincided with reality.
The leaders got away successfully, but the same could not be said for further down the back, where the usual mayhem resulted in DNF’s for the current golden boy Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Fernando Alonso (McLaren). Following a very poor start by Verstappen (called a clutch problem by Red Bull), Daniil Kvyat managed to hit Alonso and Verstappen, eliminating both of them. Kvyat claimed partial blindness, saying, “I then couldn’t see too much of what was happening in front of me; I think Verstappen had a problem too, so Alonso reacted to that – he saw it, I didn’t.”
Out front, Bottas continued to lead from Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) pulling away at one tenth of a second each lap, leaving Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) unchallenged in third.
The usual round of tyre changes and compounds then ensued with no dramatic changes in the running order. However, with around 15 laps to go it became apparent that Vettel was catching Bottas and Hamilton was catching Ricciardo.
The intervals began to slowly come down as the tyres began to show blistering. It was too close to the end of the race to be able to come in for a tyre change, so the drivers could only try not to stress the tyres too much.
By 10 laps to go, the intervals were down to around 5 seconds and being whittled away until both Vettel and Hamilton were within DRS distances from Bottas and Ricciardo.
The last laps were cliffhangers with Bottas hanging on to win by 0.658 from Vettel and Ricciardo just over one second in front of Hamilton, who had been as close as 0.2 of a second, but gave up with Ricciardo defending very strongly.
Returning to the curate’s egg, the last 10 laps were excellent. The previous 61 were processional.
Results:
1 V Bottas Mercedes 1:21, 48.523
2 S Vettel Ferrari 1:21.49.181 – 0.658
3 D Ricciardo Red Bull 1:21.54.535 – 6.012
4 L Hamilton Mercedes 1:21.55.953 – 7.430
5 K Raikkonen Ferrari 1:22.08.893 – 20.370
6 R Grosjean Haas 1:23.01.683 – 73.160
7 S Perez Force India – 70 laps
8 E Ocon Force India – 70 laps
9 F Massa Williams – 70 laps
10 L Stroll Williams – 70 laps
11 J Palmer Renault – 70 laps
12 S Vandoorne McLaren – 70 laps
13 N Hulkenberg Renault – 70 laps
14 P Wehrlein Sauber – 70 laps
15 M Ericsson Sauber – 69 laps
16 D Kvyat Toro Rosso – 68 laps
R C Sainz Toro Rosso Engine – 44 laps
R K Magnussen Haas Powersteering – 29 laps
R F Alonso McLaren Damage – 1 laps
R M Verstappen Red Bull Damage –
