700 meters above sea level and tucked back into the Styrian Hills sits the most vista-rich track in all of Formula 1’s Grand Prix Circuit. The Austria Grand Prix took place early this morning for the US viewers, and it held a bevy of exciting moments and ended with a great day for Mercedes and the exact opposite for Ferrari, who were unable to repeat their Barcelona excellence to finish in fifth and eighth place. Of course, Cadillac and Aston Martin would have paid good money to have a day like Ferrari, with Cadillac collecting two DNF’s and Aston Martin’s Stoll couldn’t finish the race yet again, leaving another disappointing, pointless weekend for the team. Mercedes was the clear winner as they pulled away from the pack and took the first and third podiums with Max Verstappen sandwiched in between them.
Mercedes wins the day
George Russell took only his second win of the season, as his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli has been the man to watch on the circuit, with a win seemingly every weekend. However, he jumped out ahead of everyone as he recorded his fastest lap so far on the very first go-round. Antonelli, conversely, found himself struggling with brake discomfort as he went wide twice in the first three turns of the race and then again a few laps later. He was able to recover and keep pace with his teammate as they were able to pull out the first and third place finishes. Anotelli still leads the field with a forty-point advantage.
Max Verstappen entered the weekend with a substantial upgrade package on his machine and was able to battle out a second-place finish to get out ahead of the feisty teenager. There were fewer than two seconds between the three leaders as they crossed the finish line. For Verstappen, the most exciting moments of his day were the battle he went into with Hamilton as they fought for position on lap 11, and when he finally won the battle and overtook the most recent winner on lap 22.
The points field at the checkered flag looked like this on Sunday:
- Russell – Mercedes – 1:26:37 – 25
- Verstappen – Red Bull – +1.61 – 18
- Antonelli – Mercedes – +1.98 – 15
- Piastri – McLaren – +21.80 – 12
- Hamilton – Ferrari – +26.39 – 10
- Hadjar – Red Bull – +29.39 – 8
- Norris – McLaren – +31.50 – 6
- Leclerc – Ferrari -45.65 – 4
- Lawson – RB – +1 Lap – 2
- Lindblad – RB – +1 Lap – 1
