@CharlesLeclerc survives throttle-scare to clinch #AustrianGP victory. #F1

Leclerc Austrian GP victory – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc survived a throttle-scare to take victory at the Austrian GP with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen taking a close second and Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton completing the podium after the Scuderia were denied a one-two finish due to Carlos Sainz suffering a fiery engine failure.

 

 

Leclerc who had not been on the podium since the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, overtook Verstappen three times on track as the Ferrari and Red Bull drivers were set on different strategies.

 

A late throttle-pedal issue did worry the Monegasque driver, but he held on to take his third win of the season.

 

However, Leclerc was not joined on the podium by team-mate Sainz, who showed similar pace and was on course to follow his fellow Ferrari-compatriot over the line but was forced to retire by a late engine fire to give Hamilton the final podium place.

 

When the 71 lap Austrian GP began, Verstappen lead a quick formation tour in an attempt to build tyre temperature and on the C4 yellow side-walled medium compounds, enjoyed a nice launch to hold the middle line and keep the lead into the opening corner.

 

Leclerc maintained second place as third-starting team-mate Sainz was squeezed on the outside to re-join wheel-to-wheel with Mercedes’ George Russell, before he fought back by the Briton on the inside into the third corner.

 

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, from fifth, could then have a look at the Silver Arrow with a drag race out of the right-hand turn, which left the Mexican on the outside for the turn four left.

 

But Russell tapped the right-rear of Perez’s RB18 racer with his front-left to send the Mexican spinning into the gravel trap but rejoined by finding the tarmac run-off by the barriers.

 

Out in-front, Verstappen built to a 0.985 second gap over Leclerc at the end of lap one, with Sainz a further second back whilst Perez eventually recovered to the pits for a set of C3 white-branded harder tyres although the Red Bull driver would retire on the 17^th tour.

 

Unlike the F1 Sprint race where Verstappen triumphed, the reigning champion could not pull away in the early proceedings as Leclerc kept within the one second window to hold DRS assistance.

 

On the rundown from turns one to three, the gap dropped to 0.5 seconds and with Perez heading for an early exit, Ferrari had the potential to split it’s strategy to jump Verstappen.

 

Leclerc had his initial look up the inside of the Red Bull into the third corner on the eighth tour but thought better of it for the next three laps.

 

Then on the 11^th lap, Leclerc made the move – sliding down the inside into the third corner, Verstappen, slower in the early stages, gave his title-rival room and barely put up a battle.

 

Verstappen tried to counter back on the outside of turn four but suffered a lock-up to drop behind.

 

Despite a moment of over-steer and then enduring a couple of lock-ups, Leclerc, posted the fastest lap at that stage and allowed the Ferrari driver to edge clear of DRS.

 

This triggered Verstappen to put a set of the C3 harder tyres at the end of lap 13 but was delayed by a 3.2 second stop due to a slow front-left change to come out into traffic.

 

This left Leclerc have a 2.5 second lead over team-mate Sainz as Verstappen had to make his way by Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher for fifth around the outside of the second corner kink before relegating 2021 championship-rival Hamilton with ease by cutting back to get a good exit from turn three.

 

The Ferrari’s kept flying around without pitting, Leclerc holding a four second gap to Sainz before the race-leader stopped at the end of the 26^th tour for a set of harder rubber – with a quicker 2.6 second stop.

 

Sainz followed suit a lap later for hards, with the Prancing Horse pairing returning to the track behind Verstappen but with the advantage on race pace – Leclerc set a new fastest lap of the Grand Prix.

 

On the 33^rd tour, Leclerc got into DRS range of Verstappen before another clean move for P1 at the third corner. An early overtake allowed Verstappen to drop back and gain DRS assistance for the rundown to turn four but decided against a proper fight back to confirm second place.

 

With Verstappen complaining of unpredictable grip levels in his RB18 racer, the team pitted him again on the 37^th tour for another set of hards, which gave Ferrari room for another stop 12 laps later.

 

Leclerc and Sainz enjoyed quick stops but again faced the battle of overtaking Verstappen, the Dutchman 2.5 seconds in-front with 20 tours remaining.

 

Leclerc was quickly back into it on the C3 white-branded harder compounds to only gain DRS assistance on Verstappen two laps later, with the Ferrari moving on the outside on the rundown to the third corner.

 

Leclerc cleverly left Verstappen to take the apex but turned sharply to get onto the throttle quicker and nailed the exit to power himself back into the lead for the last time.

 

Sainz was then about to overtake Verstappen to make it a Scuderia one-two, but on the run to the fourth corner, running behind the Red Bull, a puff of smoke started to come out of the F1-75 racer’s engine cover.

 

The Ferrari’s engine then failed wildly, with Sainz trying to pull up to the exit as flames erupted, but the slope of the circuit exit rolled meaning the Spaniard struggled to stop the car and jump out.

 

As the flames drew closer to the cockpit, Sainz was eventually able to hop out of his F1-75 racer as the virtual safety car was deployed, Leclerc holding a 5.4 second over Verstappen.

 

At the end of the 58^th tour, Leclerc used the slower conditions to pit for the C4 yellow-marked mediums and was followed by Verstappen for the run to the chequered flag.

 

Leclerc then complained of a throttle problem, the pedal not retracting fully to make the run through the third corner very challenging as the gap to the lead came down.

 

A 4.1 second lead when the virtual safety car was about to end, but Leclerc would hold on to claim the Austrian GP victory by 1.532 seconds – his first win since the Australian Grand Prix in April.

 

Hamilton came a quiet third and a further 41.217 seconds behind the top two, but the seven-time world champion was on a two-stop strategy rather than a three and made a great push up the field from ninth on the grid.

 

The Briton’s race was notable for an entertaining fight with both Haas VF-22 entries and then a DRS overtake on Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

 

Russell finished fourth and ahead of Ocon, whilst Schumacher scored back-to-back points finishes after flying past McLaren’s Lando Norris and team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

 

The other McLaren MCL36 entry of Daniel Ricciardo was ninth whilst Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten, having survived being squeezed onto the grass by AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, which instigated the Spaniard to wag his finger out of the cockpit as he continued to fight for track position.

 

Alonso, however, is currently under investigation by the stewards for an unsafe release in his pit-stop.

 

Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas finished 11^th in the classification and ahead of Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon who took 12^th, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll who settled for 13^th and the other C42 Alfa of Zhou Guanyu ended the Grand Prix 14^th.

 

A difficult weekend for AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly saw the Frenchman come home in a low-15^th. He was once again in the wars – being hit with a five-second timed-penalty for clipping Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel at the fourth corner and sent the AMR22 spinning into the gravel trap. Vettel was also reprimanded by five seconds as part of a flurry of track limits given out through the field.

 

Vettel finished 17^th, behind Tsunoda, with the only retirees Sainz, Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Perez.

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2022 Austrian GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Austrian GP Winner – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

“It was a really good race, the pace was there at the beginning, we had some good fights with Max, and the end was really difficult, I had some issues with the throttle, so it was very tricky… I definitely needed that one, the last five races have been incredibly difficult for not just myself but for the team.”

 

2^nd Place – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“It was a tricky day, seemed like we were struggling quite a bit with the tyres, and that happened on every compound – too much degradation on the tyres, but second place is still a good result for us on a tricky day.”

 

3^rd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W13 E Performance:

“It’s been a bit of a rough weekend, but really grateful that as a team we got third and fourth, so we move on from here… I do want to say a thank you to the men and women in the garage who worked so hard to rebuild the car. I had a brand-new car on Saturday morning, I made a mistake on Friday, not something I do often.”

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Formula 1 Rolex Grosser Preis Von Osterreich 2022 Race Results Classification (71 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	71	1:24:24.312	25
2	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	71	+1.532s	19
3	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	71	+41.217s	15
4	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	71	+58.972s	12
5	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	71	+68.436s	10
6	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	70	+1 lap	8
7	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	6
8	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	70	+1 lap	4
9	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	2
10	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	70	+1 lap	1
11	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	70	+1 lap	0
12	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	0
13	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	0
14	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	70	+1 lap	0
15	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	70	+1 lap	0
16	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	70	+1 lap	0
17	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	0
NC	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	56	DNF	0
NC	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	48	DNF	0
NC	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	24	DNF	0

* Provisional results. Note – Verstappen scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1115/austria/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round 12 of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Circuit Paul Ricard, in Le Castellet, France for the Formula 1 Lenovo Grand Prix De France 2022 from Friday July 22-Sunday July 24.