Luke’s Weekend Review – Austrian GP 2024

On Lap 22 we see Hamilton and Perez come into the pits for the hards, Mercedes were able to get a decent stop and get back out in a good position, but Red Bull weren’t as good from their end and Perez lost position to both of the Haas drivers, Hamilton however got a bit of bad luck as when entering the pits, he caught a bit of a slide and went over the white line and the stewards didn’t like this as they handed him a 5 second penalty for this incident. The leading pair, Verstappen and Norris decided to to pit on Lap 24 which gave Piastri the lead, The pair come back out in 2nd and 3rd but Norris was not impressed with Red Bulls release of Verstappen as Norris felt that he ahd to brake and it was an unsafe release. Race control agreed and noted this incident but the stewards decided that there is no further investigation needed for this. To close off the 1st pitstops we see Piastri finally come in on Lap 26 and rejoins in 6th.

On Lap 29 we see Perez manage to clear the Haas drivers and get ahead of them again to make up for the lost positions he had however at the same time it was announced that Perez was under investigation for potentially speeding in the pitlane and after a few laps it was announced that he was speeding and got a 5 second penalty for it. Leclerc’s race was nearly non existent as we see him pit for the 3rd time on Lap 35 for mediums and at this point, Verstappen and Norris lap the Ferrari driver. The slight glimmer of hope he had is that his team reported that they forecast that he will still finish in the points.

Another team battle started emerging on Lap 35 as both Alpine cars were trying to battle for position as Pierre Gasly was looking faster then his teammate Esteban Ocon and when Gasly went for a move on Ocon into Turn 3, the pair touch and Ocon forced Gasly wide. This battle went on for a good few laps as Gasly keeps trying to look for a gap to get past Ocon and on Lap 42 we see a great battle in Turns 3, 4 and 5 where the pair were driving side by side when Gasly was able to get past in Turn 6 and get ahead, Ocon tried to come back at Gasly however he wasn’t able to keep close to his teammate. This battle seemed in vein when we see Gasly go into the pits on Lap 45.

On Lap 40 the race leader was complaining that his tyres suddenly went bad as he said he was sliding around, this would have been great news for Norris however on Lap 43 he was complaining about the same thing. On Lap 45 however Norris starts to claw back the gap as Verstappen loses some time in traffic and Norris brings the gap down to around 6 seconds. On Lap 48 we see Piastri overtake Hamilton into Turn 3 while Verstappen comes back on the radio saying that he can’t seem to hold on much longer as he also seemed to be slowing Hulkenberg behind him who was lapped by Verstappen.

Red Bull finally calls in Verstappen on Lap 52 but so do McLaren and they call Norris in which seemed like it was going to be another battle in the pits for the leading pair. Red Bull who are usually the quickest to service a car were actually slow and McLaren were able to win that race as Norris came out back on track way closer to Verstappen than he originally was before pitting. McLaren also managed to double stack Norris and Piastri on the same lap.

To make matters worse for Verstappen, he manages to lock up his used mediums on Lap 54 and this cost him quite a bit as this brought Lando in DRS range and ready to attack. The battle between the pair started on Lap 55 as Norris starts attacking Verstappen into Turn 3 and we see Verstappen defend quite hard as he seems to have moved twice under braking to cover off Norris. Norris naturally complains about this to the team but did not let this impact his race as he kept attacking Verstappen and trying to find a way past. Lap 57 we hear Verstappen saying that he thinks there is something wrong with the car as he has no grip. To makes matter more interesting, on Lap 58 Norris gets a black and white flag for track limits. On Lap 59 Norris was able to go past Verstappen into Turn 3 but unfortunately Norris goes wide and has to give the position back into Turn 4 to avoid a penalty. Norris keeps attempting an overtake, and on Lap 61 he was under investigation for track limits once more. On Lap 63 Norris once more goes for a move into 3 and we see Verstappen go off the track and keeps the lead while he was off the track. This gave Norris more fuel to go for another move and another move he went into Turn 3 and this time they touch and the drama starts as both get a rear puncture.

Verstappen makes it back to the pits and gets onto the softs and manages to get back out on track while Norris sustains too much damage on his way to the pits and had to retire the car. The VSC comes out on the same lap and the pitlane is closed due to the amount of debris in the entry of the pits. The VSC only lasted about a lap or 2 as the Marshalls were able to clear off any debris that was on track and the green light was back on and all drivers got back racing. George Russell was able to take the lead while all this drama was happening as he was driving in 3rd place while Piastri was able to overtake Carlos Sainz into Turn 5 with a similar move that he pulled on Perez showing how much grip the McLaren has. After an investigation of the incident between Verstappen and Norris the stewards decided that Verstappen was to blame and handed a 10 second penalty for the incident which Verstappen thought was ridiculous.

Fast forwarding a bit to the last lap where we see Russell still leading followed by Piastri and Sainz, Piastri was closing in on Russell but didn’t have enough time to get him. We do however see Perez overtake Hulkenberg for 6th place, however Hulkenberg wasn’t going to let this slide as he was able to get past again into Turn 4. In the end we see George Russell take the chequered flag followed by Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen, Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly form the top 10. Fernando Alonso takes the fastest lap of the race on the last lap taking the point away from Verstappen. Lando Norris was once again awarded driver of the day.

Who do you think were the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Austrian GP? We now head to Silverstone next week for the final race of this triple header we had.