Charles Leclerc ended his run of recent misfortune by overtaking Max Verstappen three times to win the Austrian Grand Prix – and revive his World Championship hopes.
But a likely one-two for Ferrari was thwarted when Carlos Sainz’ race came to a fiery end with an engine failure, leaving Verstappen a clear runner-up ahead of a third consecutive P3 position for Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen had started as a hot favourite to increase his number of grand prix victories at the Red Bull Ring to five – four already being a record – having comfortably won the sprint to secure pole position ahead of the two Ferraris.
The field lined up with three cars well out of position relative to performance – Valtteri Bottas with his Alfa Romeo in the pit lane due to an engine penalty, Fernando Alonso as he had been unable to start the sprint with an electrical issue that required major changes overnight, and Sebastian Vettel who had spun into the gravel on Saturday and been retired because of the damage to the Aston Martin.
There was a slight scare for Hamilton as his car was still being worked on 10 minutes before lights out due to fears about a ‘long’ brake pedal, but the Mercedes was given the all-clear well in time and the Briton was able to take his place in P8.
At the start, with the track shrouded in orange smoke from flares released by the legions of Dutch fans, Verstappen got away ahead of Leclerc – but his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez was the victim of the first incident, sent spinning into the gravel through contact with George Russell. The Mexican entered the pits with a sizeable hole in his sidepod and re-emerged a long way behind in last place, hard tyres having been fitted.
After contact at Turn 4 💥
Russell: “Nothing I could do, he just turned into me.”
Perez: “You see it clear, no? With George? I gave him enough room.#AustrianGP #F1
— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) July 10, 2022
Hamilton dropped behind Mick Schumacher, his nemesis from the sprint, while at the sharp end Verstappen found himself being harried by Leclerc – with Perez just ahead of them, then lapped at little more than one-tenth race distance. Leclerc, with DRS, was all over his rival in a battle reminiscent of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia at the start of this season and got the move done on lap 12.
Russell, at the head of a DRS train, received a five-second penalty for the Perez collision and served it at an early pit-stop where he also had the front wing of his Mercedes…
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