Ocon says Gasly move “hard and fair”

In brief

Ocon defends “hard and fair racing”

Pierre Gasly was unimpressed when Ocon forced him wide at turn three during yesterday’s race. “What was that?” he asked his team on the radio. “Why did he just push me off the track?”

Speaking after the race Ocon, who collided with Gasly earlier this year in Monaco, insisted his move has been “hard and fair racing.”

“Nothing really to comment,” he told the official F1 channel. “It was good racing.”

Gasly, who later passed Ocon and went on to finish two places ahead of him, was more restrained in his comments afterwards. “It was intense,” he said. “I mean, we’re Formula 1 drivers so you’ve got to race and that’s what we enjoy.

“Obviously it’s nice to have some space, but sometimes there’s no space, and then you’ve got to find other ways to make it through. I think I kept it clean on my side, managed to get a point out of it so that’s the most important.”

Verstappen cleared over pit lane incident

Max Verstappen collected one penalty in the Austrian Grand Prix but avoided a second earlier in the race when Lando Norris complained the Red Bull driver delayed his arrival in the pit box.

The stewards conceded “there is a possibility that car one [Verstappen] hindered car four [Norris] on its approach to the pit stop,” but chose to take no action. “Article 34.14 (a) specifies that a car is considered to be released in an unsafe manner if it could endanger pit lane personnel or another driver,” they noted. “This was not the case and therefore no further action is taken.”

Komatsu “speechless” at Haas result

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu was thrilled by the team’s biggest points haul of the year so far in Austria. Nico Hulkenberg took sixth, two placed ahead of team mate Kevin Magnussen, moving the team up to seventh in the championship on 19 points.

“I’m just so happy for everyone in the team,” said Komatsu, who took charge at Haas at the beginning of this year. “Sometimes we get unlucky but today our execution was amazing.

“Nico and Kevin drove well, and pit stops were good, everything was great. I’m speechless, I’m just so happy for everyone to get this result and for Nico to beat Perez on merit, that’s a huge statement.”

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