Ferrari’s woes continue as Lewis Hamilton wins the Styrian Grand Prix

After an exciting Styrian Grand Prix, Mercedes were able to cruise to a one-two finish with Max Verstappen finishing third.

Starting Grid

Lewis Hamilton started P1 with Max Verstappen alongside him in P2, Carlos Sainz and Valterri Bottas in P3 and P4 respectively. Esteban Ocon started in P5 with Alex Albon in P6. Pierre Gasly was in P7 with Daniel Ricciardo alongside the Frenchman. Lando Norris started P9 after a three-place grid penalty and Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top ten.

George Russell P11 for Williams and Lance Stroll P12. Daniil Kyvat in P13 with Charles Leclerc in P14. Kevin Magnussen was P15 alongside Kimi Raikkonen in P16. Sergio Perez in P17, Nicholas Latifi in P18, Antonio Giovinazzi in P19 and Romain Grosjean will start from the pit-lane.

Race start

And it’s lights out and away we go for the Styrian GP. Lewis Hamilton led away from Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz. The Ferrari’s tangled on lap one and worries of the team dropping off the pace continues.

The Safety car had to come out after bits of Sebastian Vettel’s rear wing on the track out of turn four and Vettel retired from the Styrian Grand Prix after one lap.

As Charles Leclerc called over the radio “Is everything okay with the car?” his engineer left him worried as he replied, “We see damage on the rear and the floor”.

The cars went racing again as, in the mid-field, Lando Norris overtook Lance Stroll going into turn three. George Russell then went wide going into turn five and lost many places due to going wide.

The day turns worse for Ferrari as Leclerc retires after his tangle with Vettel and both had to retire from the race.

Valterri Bottas moved closer in on Sainz and was able to overtake the McLaren going into turn four and moved up to third.

Alex Albon moved into fourth after overtaking Sainz into everyone’s favorite overtaking spot turn four. After lap 10, Hamilton led the race and was 2.8 seconds ahead of Verstappen. Bottas was third with Albon fourth and Sainz fifth. The two Renaults were sixth and seventh with Pierre Gasly, Stroll and Norris rounding off the top ten so far.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel spoke with the media mid-race and he said that “There was no-where for me to go and I felt it was optimistic from Charles to try and overtake me into turn three”.

Stroll got past Gasly and into eighth with the Renaults squabbling between each other as Daniel Ricciardo started to lose time. Gasly lost against not one but two Racing Points as Sergio Perez overtook Gasly.

Ricciardo was able to finally get past Ocon as the Aussie started to push to try and catch Sainz. On lap 22, Norris was able to get past the slow Gasly in his AlphaTauri and steal 10th place from the Frenchman.

Max Verstappen was the first man into the pits as his engineer shouts “Box,box,box,box” and the medium tyre went onto the Red Bull.

On lap 26, Esteban Ocon retired from the race after a suspected cooling issue. Hamilton then pitted for fresh medium tyres.

At the half-way point of the race, Hamilton lead the race with Verstappen five seconds behind the Mercedes driver. Looking further down the grid: Bottas P3, Albon P4, Ricciardo P5, Perez P6, Norris P7, Kvyat P8, Giovinazzi P9, Raikkonen P10, Stroll P11, Sainz P12, Grosjean P13, Gasly P14, Magnussen P15 with Latifi and Russell the bottom two in P16 and P17 respectively.

The top three were miles ahead of fourth-placed Alex Albon with the Thai driver 31 seconds behind Bottas in third.

The Racing Points switched places with each other as Perez moved into sixth and Stroll dropped to seventh.

Perez started P17 and moved into fifth after an easy moved down the straight leading to turn four. Lap after lap, Perez was catching fourth placed Albon and the Mexican in DRS range every lap.

With ten laps to go, Hamilton lead with Verstappen 8.5 seconds being the Mercedes. Bottas was third with Albon hanging on in fourth. Perez was fifth, Ricciardo was sixth, Stroll was seventh, Sainz was eighth, Norris was ninth and Kvyat completed the top ten.

On lap 66, Bottas looked to overtake Verstappen for second but the Dutchman went round the outside and overtook the Finnish driver and regained the position. On the next lap, Bottas was able to overtake the Red Bull driver and make it stick.

A wonderful overtake from Stroll on Ricciardo as Norris overtakes the Aussie on lap 70 and Norris then overtook Stroll on the last lap and the McLaren driver was able to overtake the second Racing Point driver as Perez picked up damage after he tangled with Albon.

Hamilton took the chequered flag and won the race after leading every single lap. Bottas finished second with Max Verstappen completing the podium places.

Final Grid Standings

P1- Lewis Hamilton

P2- Valtteri Bottas

P3- Max Verstappen

P4- Alex Albon

P5- Lando Norris

P6- Sergio Perez

P7- Lance Stroll

P8- Daniel Ricciardo

P9- Carlos Sainz

P10- Daniil Kvyat

P11- Kimi Raikkonen

P12- Kevin Magnussen

P13- Romain Grosjean

P14- Antonio Giovinazzi

P15- Pierre Gasly

P16- George Russell

P17- Nicholas Latifi

And Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon and Sebastian Vettel retired from the race.

Driver of the Day

Many worthy drivers for this award but we will award it to Sergio Perez. After starting in P17 and finishing in sixth did a stellar job for Racing Point and clearing the cars one by one.