In Pictures: Austria 2021
The weekend started in a similar way to where it left off the week before with Max Verstappen setting the fastest times. Many teams and drivers were trying out Pirelli’s prototype tires during FP1. Verstappen was fastest. But for Practice two, it was Lewis Hamilton who finished on top.
Saturday was Sebastian Vettel's birthday, but he found himself in hot water as he was found guilty of impeding Fernando Alonso towards the end of Q2 when the Spaniard was on a hot lap and handed a three-place grid drop to start the GP P11 on the grid. Up front, it was a very tight race to Pole, Max got it by a very slim margin over a surprisingly fast Lando Norris. Sergio Perez qualified third, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
On Sunday, Red Bull were confident of collecting many points with both cars starting 1st and 3rd. At 3:00 PM local time the race got underway with Verstappen leading into Turn 1, behind him Esteban Ocon collided with the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and had to retire with a broken front suspension. This brought the safety car out for a few laps.
At the restart, Lando Norris, who was running 2nd at the time, tried to defend against the Red Bull of Sergio Pérez at turn 4, which resulted in Perez going off-track and joining back in tenth place. Norris was given a 5-second time penalty for the incident. On lap 31, Norris pitted to serve his penalty and to change his tires. Perez's race was compromised by the time lost during the Norris' incident, but was further complicated as he received two 5-second penalties, both penalties for forcing Charles Leclerc off the track in a similar incidents as the one Norris did to him earlier. On the last lap, Kimi Räikkönen, collided with the Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel, meaning Vettel was unable to finish the race.
On lap 52, Bottas was given permission to pass Hamilton for second place and try to catch a flying Verstappen. At the end, Max Verstappen secured his first career Grand Slam (Grand Chelem), winning from pole, setting the fastest lap, and leading from start to finish. Valtteri Bottas finished P2 for Mercedes and a very happy Lando Norris third in the McLaren.
““To win again at home at the Red Bull Ring is just incredible. I expected it to be good, but not this good, and the car was on rails. It was really nice to drive and the pace was incredible on both tire compounds. I could push and also look after the tires which is exactly how you want it to be and I could extend my gap lap after lap. Just like everyone else we learnt from last weekend and we optimized the car even more by improving the set-up. It’s hard to put into words because it was so enjoyable to drive and the weekend was the best it could be, so let’s hope we can carry on in the same way. It’s a great reward for everyone in the Team and it was also very nice to have Honda represented on the podium by Tanabe. The fans were also incredible all weekend, so much orange in the grandstands and it’s just great to see people back and enjoying Formula One at the track. There are of course a lot of difficult races coming up and Silverstone will be interesting with the Sprint Race to mix things up. But for now, I’m really happy with the way the whole race went and you don’t often get this type of race, so we all have to enjoy it.””
““For me personally, I’m happy, having finished one place better than last week (Styrian GP), and I started from fifth. I think as a team we got some decent points considering the gap we have to Red Bull in terms of pure pace. For me, it’s nice to be on the podium in second place. I think it was really the maximum we could get today.””
““First of all, I want to say a big thanks to everyone, all the fans. It was a lot of fun, it was a good race, it was exciting. But I’m disappointed because we should have been second place. I thought that lap one was just racing really. He tried to go around the outside, which was a bit stupid, and he ran off the track himself. I didn’t even push him. I don’t know. I’m frustrated but I’m also happy with P3. We had very good pace and yeah, I’m happy.””
