The biggest talking point from Formula 1’s 2024 Austrian Grand Prix was, of course, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris colliding in the main race’s final laps, which decided the contest in George Russell’s favour.
The result made the Mercedes driver a two-time GP winner and was a fine reward for his efforts, in a challenging W15 car, to put himself in position to capitalise on the collision ahead. Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and the Ferrari drivers failed in that regard.
The mix behind Red Bull and McLaren got another detail dose with what we witnessed in Austria, but the biggest new element concerned the racecraft limits of the two drivers leading the standings. Elsewhere, Red Bull’s management war sparked into life, there was plenty of 2025 driver market news and finally a lot of mostly good chat about track limits.
Here’s the pick of what we learned at the Red Bull Ring.
1. Verstappen hasn’t changed since 2021
Verstappen’s driving tactics came under the spotlight again, with many drawing comparisons to his 2021 battles against Hamilton
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“He’s driving with great maturity.”
So said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner of Max Verstappen’s efforts against Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in early 2022 at that year’s French round – evoking how they hadn’t collided when the Dutchman had all those times against Lewis Hamilton in 2021.
This was the lazy theory. That Verstappen’s 2021 title success had led to a change in mindset when battling others at key moments. But Verstappen’s needless crash with Hamilton at Interlagos 2022 surely fatally holed that idea, even before the Baku sprint clash with Russell and “Dickhead”-gate further undermined it.
OPINION: Verstappen just proved again he hasn’t changed, or matured, since F1 2021
And yet, because there had been so few controversial racing moments since late-2022 amid Red Bull’s crushing dominance – a factor in exactly why Verstappen didn’t race Leclerc so hard anyway – the theory could lay dormant. Not so after Austria.
Especially after McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said: “The problem behind it is that if you don’t address these things honestly, they will come back. They have come back today because they were not addressed properly in the past when there was some fights with Lewis that needed to be punished in a harsher way.”
2. Norris is willing to give exactly what he gets from…
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