Former Formula 1 driver, Sky Sport F1 commentator Martin Brandl summed up the results of the Austrian Grand Prix…
The Austrian Grand Prix provided us with another interesting race in this long season of 22 stages, half of which are over.
Saturday’s sprint didn’t turn out to be particularly exciting, but still, in my opinion, it was more interesting than free practice and gave Sergio Perez the chance to come back after a serious penalty he was given after qualifying. Conversely, Fernando Alonso, who did not start in the sprint, had to start the race last but was able to secure a reserve of power plant elements without further penalties.
Sprints added an element of risk and unpredictability without additional artificial measures such as ballast or reverse start. This is totally where now cars make it easier to chase and overtake, with the exception of the track in Monaco where there will most likely never be sprint races. Whether you like sprinting or not, next year we will see six such weekends – a quarter of the expected 24 Grands Prix.
Max Verstappen confidently won the sprint, confirming Red Bull’s dominance on the home circuit in recent years. Charles Leclerc finished second but was confident he could put a fight on Max on Sunday. It seems he only believed in it on Saturday, but on Sunday he proved his case.
In the Ferrari race, Leclair and Sainz had better tire handling and were faster than Verstappen, allowing them to cover twice the distance on the starter set of Medium tires. Max defended honestly and neatly and showed himself to be a real professional. This year he almost always behaves like this, although at Silverstone he repulsed Mick Schumacher’s attacks very hard. I remember noting in Jeddah last year that the amazing legacy of Michael Schumacher and, to some extent, Ayrton Senna, has been partly tarnished by the hard fighting of the current drivers – and that Max should have avoided such a reputation. But it will be interesting to see how he behaves when the title fight turns into a real fight.
Max has a solid championship lead, 38 points ahead of Charles, but things could have been very different if Ferrari had avoided reliability issues in Spain and Azerbaijan, or used better strategy in Monaco and the UK.
An explosion at a power station in Sainz sparked a costly fire in our age of cost control. The win at Silverstone inspired Sainz and at Spielberg he was absolutely killed when a guaranteed at least second place went up in smoke. He understands that in the second half of the season, the lagging Ferrari will be close to the end of the battle between its drivers. It was a very painful and sad moment for his chances in the championship.
In the closing laps Leclerc had problems with the accelerator, maybe he should have kept some of the information secret from the race directors and Red Bull, but in the end he definitely deserved the win.
The weekend turned out to be difficult for Mercedes. In qualifying both cars crashed into a wall, at the start of the sprint Lewis rolled back and at the start of the feature race Russell was fined and had to replace the front wing. Despite this, they finished third and fourth – the team confidently takes third place in the Constructors’ Championship.
I think Russell’s penalty for contacting Sergio Perez in the fourth corner is too severe. Over the weekend I did ten laps in my 1992 Benetton F1 and remembered how blind, tight and demanding Turns 3, 4, 6 and 9 were. Coming into a race with full fuel tanks and cold front tires, you always feel understeer in Turn 4, and going through the outer radius is especially risky given the narrower exit.
It seemed to me that George was trying his best to climb the curb in the corner, leaving Sergio maximum space, and there was still room behind Perez’s car at the time of impact.
45 minutes later, in similar circumstances, Sebastian Vettel was turned over after contact with Pierre Gasly, and in this case I take it as a good thing – Sebastian couldn’t physically leave Pierre more space.
When assessing, much depends on interpretation. At Silverstone, the stewards forgave a lot, widely using the “let them race” mantra, and a week later they strictly followed the rules.
In fact, I fully support the rigor of umpires – and I’m ready to explain. Many jokes were made about the fact that the FIA recorded 43 track limit violations in the first, ninth and tenth corners in the race (the eighth corner, where Pérez was penalized in qualifying, was not mentioned). But over the course of lap 71 of the race, twenty cars can go through these three turns up to 4260 times, so 43 violations isn’t much.
The popular expressions “if it weren’t for faster they wouldn’t have left” and “if there were barriers instead of lines they wouldn’t have bumped into them” still apply. On the one hand, for riders peeking over the high sides of the cockpit of these very large machines, due to the Halo and strange front wheel fairings at 250 km/h, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the tires are on the edge of the the white line or all the way across it. On the other hand, skill and precision should be rewarded, and if you can’t keep the car completely on track, leave a margin.
The same applies to the closed park. The stewards discussed the issue of rule violation by the top three riders after the finish. It’s closed because until the cars are checked and the riders are not weighed, no one can be there.
It is clear to everyone that if your car is a millimeter wider or a gram lighter than the regulations, you will be immediately disqualified. And if the FIA aims to tighten up enforcement of all the rules, then I support that. If the rules are applied consistently and Formula 1 has the means to clearly define these types of violations, it will be good for the sport and for the fans.
For Canada, Mick Schumacher seemed like a good racer, diligent, but crashed too many cars. After difficult conversations on the subject with team leader Günther Steiner, he seemed to come to life and now looks much more confident. In any sport, everything depends primarily on what’s going on in your head.
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
