@RedBullRacing’s @Max33Verstappen claims dominant #StyrianGP victory. #F1

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen stormed to a dominant victory at the Styrian GP, ahead of Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

 

 

The Dutchman produced a faultless drive from start-to-finish at Red Bull’s home Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring and extended his World Driver’s Championship lead to 18 points over Hamilton.

 

When the 71 lap Styrian GP began, Verstappen and Hamilton jumped off the line at the same time, with the Dutchman coming across to cover the Mercedes driver on the inside line into the first corner.

 

As the leading pair raced clear upfront, Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez put McLaren’s Lando Norris under intense pressure for third place through the opening corners, but the latter was able to snub the second Red Bull RB16B entry and even took a look around the outside of Hamilton at the long right downhill turn four.

 

 

Verstappen charged to a 0.9 second gap at the end of the first tour and by the next lap was out of DRS range from Hamilton behind, with the Red Bull driver’s lead almost three seconds by the end of the opening 10 laps.

 

The front two rapidly pulled clear of Norris, who at first kept Perez and the fast Bottas at bay with solid straight-line speed through the Red Bull Ring’s DRS zones.

 

But on the 10^th tour, Perez dived to the inside of Norris at the tight uphill turn three right hander and took third place as the Briton showed little defence in the move, which Bottas copied on the following lap.

 

By the end of the Grand Prix’s 15^th lap, with Perez 15 seconds adrift in third, Verstappen edged over three seconds clear of Hamilton, as the Dutchman was able to run in the high 1:09’s, whilst the reigning world champion swung between matching the Red Bull and clocking laps in the high 1:10’s bracket.

 

Over the next 13 tours, Verstappen gradually worked his gap to almost six seconds before the pit-stop window opened.

 

Perez was the first of the top four to pit when he stopped at the end of lap 26, to swap his softs for hards, but was held up for 4.8 seconds due to a slow left-rear change.

 

This allowed Bottas to snatch third place when he came in at the end of the following lap to switch the mediums for hards, which Hamilton followed suit a lap later at the end of the 28^th tour.

 

Red Bull reacted by bringing in Verstappen a lap later after Hamilton to also put on the harder compounds and the Dutchman easily kept the lead, although his advantage was reduced to 4.4 seconds by the time the stops were complete.

 

Mercedes told Hamilton to push hard to close the gap, which the Briton brought down to four seconds as he then posted the fastest lap on lap 34, before Verstappen picked his pace up again and edged out his lead once more over the next stage of the Grand Prix as the leaders made their way through traffic.

 

Verstappen’s lead was back to almost six seconds at the end of the 46^th tour, with Bottas nearly 30 seconds off in third place as the final stage of proceedings approached.

 

The only problem Verstappen encountered during the race was a brake by wire issue with the Milton Keynes based-outfit advising the Dutchman it was caused by him braking on the penultimate corner exit kerbs ahead of turn ten.

 

Verstappen crossed the line to clinch the Styrian GP victory by 35.743 seconds, with Hamilton reporting he spotted his front-right tyre blistering in the closing stages, as although the clouds covered the circuit in the final 10 laps, the rain held off.

 

Behind the top two, Bottas held onto finish in the final podium place, but only just in-front of Perez after Red Bull brought the Mexican in for a surprise second stop on the 55^th tour.

 

Perez had an almost 20 second gap to hunt down the Mercedes, having run just behind the Finn for the opening stage of Bottas’ second stint, and he quickly ate into his advantage – sometimes gaining two seconds a tour.

 

But they also made their way through traffic the leaders had already passed, and Perez’s fresh mediums began to wear, the gap came down at a slower rate, with Bottas eventually claiming P3 by just 0.5 seconds, with Perez unable to get close enough to make an overtake in time.

 

McLaren’s Norris settled in a solid fifth place and in-front of Ferrari pairing Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.

 

Sainz’ progress from starting 12^th on the grid came by running long into the Grand Prix on the C3 yellow side-walled medium rubber and overcutting a large group of cars that were running ahead of him in the early proceedings, then moving up into sixth place passing Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll shortly after his stop by using DRS range to blast by the Canadian on the inside of turn three on the 45^th tour.

 

Leclerc’s race to clinch seventh place was more daring, as the Monegasque-youngster was forced to stop on the opening lap after suffering front wing damage after clipping Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly on the run to turn three, which gave the AT02 a left-rear puncture.

 

Leclerc made two pit-stops on his way back through the field, showing great pace and making a string of solid overtakes – twice going on the inside of Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi at turn three and passing Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen and Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso around the outside of turn four – as the former’s pass occurred at the turn-in part of the corner with the Alfa Romeo C41’s front wing picking up a slight bit of damage as the cars briefly touched together.

 

A strong last stint helped Leclerc to recover and get-by Stroll for seventh place, with Alonso ended the race just behind in ninth and only just ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda who rounded out the points-paying positions.

 

Raikkonen came home 11^th and ahead of Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel who was 12^th and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo who was 13^th with the latter making an impressive start to run in the top ten in the early proceedings before being hit with a loss of power.

 

Although the Australian’s power returned, he ran in the field from there and ended up in-front of Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon who finished 14^th.

 

The aforementioned Gasly retired on the opening lap after suffering a puncture on the opening tour, with the Frenchman also making contact with the Alfa of Giovinazzi – spinning the C41 at turn three a few moments later after his tangle with Leclerc – as he fought to control his car.

 

In the run-off area beyond the third corner, Gasly also touched Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi (who ended the Grand Prix in 17^th splitting the Haas pairing Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin) and gave the FW43B a puncture before limping his way back to the pits with his left-rear destroyed.

 

The second Williams Racing FW43B entry of George Russell was the other retiree of the race, who was running well behind Alonso in the early proceedings as they lead a pack of cars in the fight for seventh place, which was boosted up by the Leclerc and Gasly tangle.

 

But Russell was warned of a reliability issue ahead of his pit-stop, where he was held for almost 20 seconds as Williams had to top up the pneumatic valve pressure in his Mercedes power-train, until he had to stop again for it to be refilled.

 

Although the Briton emerged to run at the rear of the field for a while, he was called in to retire early on the 39^th tour.

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2021 Styrian GP – The Top Three

 

 

2021 Styrian GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“Straightaway I felt a good balance in the car, was good to manage the tyres from the start. We just kept on going, hit our lap times. I’m looking forward to next week!”

 

2^nd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“Bit of a lonely race really, just trying to keep hold of these tyres. They’ve obviously made some big improvements over the last couple of races, I don’t know where they’ve made up the time. Their long run pace is better, we’re losing too much time down the straights. They’re faster, there’s not much I can do in that respect. We need to find some performance from somewhere.”

 

3^rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“From where I started, this was the maximum today. Damage limitation. It was getting a bit close at the end [with Perez] and I’m glad we could defend as it’s been a while since I’ve been on the podium.”

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Formula 1 BWT Grosser Preis Der Steiermark 2021 Race Results Classification (71 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	71	1:22:18.925	25
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	71	+35.743s	19
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	71	+46.907s	15
4	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA	71	+47.434s	12
5	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	10
6	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	70	+1 lap	8
7	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	70	+1 lap	6
8	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	4
9	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	70	+1 lap	2
10	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI HONDA	70	+1 lap	1
11	7	Kimi Räikkönen	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	70	+1 lap	0
12	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	0
13	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	70	+1 lap	0
14	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	70	+1 lap	0
15	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	70	+1 lap	0
16	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	69	+2 laps	0
17	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	68	+3 laps	0
18	9	Nikita Mazepin	HAAS FERRARI	68	+3 laps	0
NC	63	George Russell	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	36	DNF	0
NC	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI HONDA	1	DNF	0

 

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1092/austria.html

 

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

 

Round nine of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship remains at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Styria, Austria next weekend for the Formula 1 BWT Grosser Preis Von Osterreich 2021 to end a triple-header of race weekends at back-to-back rounds in Austria.