It didn’t look like the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix was going to end in anything other than Max Verstappen and Red Bull domination a few laps into last Saturday’s sprint race. That Ferrari and Charles Leclerc were able to grab a morale-boosting main race win the next day is the main sporting takeaway from the event that marks this season’s halfway stage.
But there were plenty of other talking points – and sadly, not all of them good.
In racing terms, Ferrari is faced once again with a severe reliability drama to address, while, much more importantly, Formula 1 and the Red Bull Ring have serious questions to answer regarding the shocking instances of fan harassment and abuse reported over the weekend.
Here are 10 things we learned from the 2022 Austrian GP weekend.
Leclerc caught and passed Verstappen twice in Austria, demonstrating Ferrari’s upper hand in the race
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
1. Ferrari can deliver an important psychological victory on Red Bull turf…
In the two 2021 Formula 1 races at the Red Bull Ring, Max Verstappen led all the combined 142 laps to go along with his 2018 and 2019 Austria victories. That Ferrari beat Red Bull to victory on home soil and in such a thumping manner when its reliability issues are discounted, is a serious boon to the Scuderia, its fans and the neutrals wanting the title fight to go the distance.
PLUS: How Leclerc beat Verstappen in Red Bull’s backyard after F1 sprint defeat
“I don’t completely agree,” replied team boss Mattia Binotto when it was suggested this was Ferrari’s best showing since Leclerc’s Melbourne domination. “Barcelona was one of those races where we’re very strong. Monaco was one of those races where we’re very strong. But yeah, since those races …yeah, it’s been the first time where we were actually quite a bit quicker.”
Although Sainz had ended Ferrari’s six-race losing streak at Silverstone the previous week, its team orders and strategy shambles overshadowed a day when it should’ve fully capitalised the faster Red Bull being badly hobbled. But in Austria, Ferrari ended up just 0.029s shy of pole and finally showed it has indeed made progress on the soft-compound tyre management woes that cost it victory in the two races that preceded its luckless-streak starting in Spain. Now, with a psychological blow struck that works both ways – boosting its own morale and showing Red Bull the title fight isn’t as over as it seemed – Ferrari simply…
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