Verstappen romps to victory in Styrian Grand Prix; Hamilton and Bottas P2 & P3, Perez P4

The Red Bull of Max Verstappen was completely untouchable in the first of two consecutive races at the Red Bull Ring, easily going from pole to victory in Sunday’s Styrian Grand Prix in the beautiful hills of Spielberg, Austria. Verstappen handily outclassed his main championship rival, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton, by over 35 seconds to take his second consecutive victory in this second of three back-to-back-to-back races. To be fair, Hamilton did make a penultimate lap second pit stop for new Soft Pirellis that enabled him to snatch away the extra point for fastest lap from the superlative Dutchman. Nevertheless, Verstappen increased his point lead over Hamilton, the seven-time and current reigning champion, to 18 with his second consecutive victory. The dominant win at Red Bull’s home circuit also highlighted just how far the RB16B chassis has come in a year’s time, with Verstappen gapping P2 Hamilton by just about the same margin Hamilton bested him by when Max finished P3 and Lewis was victorious in the second Austrian contest in what was Round 2 of the COVID-effected 2020 season.

Despite their glaring pace deficit to Verstappen’s Red Bull, It wasn’t all bad news for Mercedes on the day, as their beleaguered number two pilot, Valtteri Bottas, was able to hold of the hard charging second Red Bull of Sergio Perez for P3 and take the last spot on the podium. The Mexican simply ran out of laps as the 71 for today’s contest were just about the maximum for Bottas to keep that valuable position and perhaps restore some much needed confidence after an extremely demoralizing stretch for the Finn. In truth, it was solid drivel around for Bottas, as he was penalized for a sort of burnout in the pots during qualifying and had to start P5 instead of P2 where he qualified. Still, with Red Bull now consistently getting solid points results from Perez, the team now carries a 40-point lead over Mercedes in the all-important Constructors’ standings after eight rounds of the championship, which is roughly a third of the season.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was once again best of the rest and finished P5, as he has so often this season. The team were content to pull the talented young Englishman out of the top four’s elite fray and just run a steady pace to bring their man home fifth. However, the results were not so good for the second McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo, who failed to score after some sort of power issue caused the Aussie to drop like a stone just as he was making up positions early in the race and he thereafter could make no further progress, finishing down in P13. Ferrari, their closest rivals for third in the Constructors’, took full advantage of Ricciardo’s misfortune with the Prancing Horses rebounding nicely from a points shutout in France last week. Carlos Sainz overcame starting from twelfth on the grid to grab an impressive P6 finish and Charles Leclerc finished where he started in P7 but only after a lot of crazy contact with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly on Lap 1 forced the Monegasque in for a new front wing. While Gasly suffered terminal suspension damage after getting a puncture out of the contretemps with Leclerc and then being ping ponged by nearly the entire field as he decelerated down the order, Leclerc went on to be voted Driver of the Day for his storming and determined performance. It was an honor that most decidedly did not receive Gasly’s vote.

Further down, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll drove solid race to take P8, Alpine’s wise old head Fernando Alonso scored his third consecutive points finish in P9 and Yuki Tsunoda salvaged a single point for Alpha Tauri in P10 on a day when the team were surely hoping for more.

Top 10 finishers of the Styrian GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time and you don’t even have to make a new hotel reservation — it may be called the Austrian Grand Prix but it is at this exact Red Bull Ring next Sunday and for the same number of laps to boot. It’s doubtful that Mercedes can find the pace to challenge the supreme Verstappen here during that short window but stranger things have happened. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!