F1 – Rolex Grosser Preis Von Österreich 2020: Event Analysis

Free Practice:

Formula 1 returned for the first time since November, with the first round of a Coronavirus delayed 70th season. However, after practice, many were fearing a 2014 or 2016-esque season with Mercedes topping all 3 sessions 1 and 2, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Valtteri Bottas in each session.

What was also concerning was the surprising lack of pace Red Bull were showing. Red Bull had been tipped to be the team to take the fight to Mercedes for 2020, after Ferrari showed no signs of competitiveness in pre-season testing. However, like testing, Red Bull’s mid-corner drivability looked very poor, with several spins for both Max Verstappen and Alex Albon. The overall pace also looked in doubt, with Mercedes in FP2 being half a second faster than Red Bull.

Ferrari were also struggling. A lot. They looked comfortably wedged in the midfield battle with McLaren and Racing Point throughout all practice sessions. What was most shocking was their lack of straight-line speed – the Ferrari losing around 0.7s alone on the straights. Rectify this and Ferrari should be back towards the top, averaging between 0.6 to 1.2s off the pace throughout practice.

The Ferrari engine concerns also explains the lack of pace from customer teams Alfa Romeo and Haas. The 2 teams looking like they’ll be bringing up the rear along with Williams in the early stages of 2020. This will be very concerning, especially for Haas, a team that desperately needs results after a dismal 2019 season.

Surprisingly, there was only 1 crash throughout not just practice but the entire weekend, proving just how in tune modern day F1 drivers are despite 7 months off. Unsurprisingly, that crash came from Williams’ rookie Nicholas Latifi, making his F1 debut. He overcorrected a snap of oversteer out of Turn 1 (a place where many drivers were struggling) and impacted the outside barrier, causing the car to pirouette dramatically. Amazingly, not much damage was actually done, for which Williams will be thankful for as they undoubtedly are the team with the least spare parts.

Latifi crashes in FP3

Qualifying:

Saturday saw the first qualifying session of 2020, and the first time we got to see the true performances of the teams 2020 machines. Latifi was comfortably last, half a second of 19th place. However, in those 2 positions ahead of Latifi were the Alfas of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi. Considering just 2 years ago, they were arguably ‘best of the rest’ with Charles Leclerc, the Sauber Motorsport-run team will be concerned at the lack of performance. How much of this is down to the engine rather than the car itself is unknown, however if the performance doesn’t improve, will their World Championship winning driver Raikkonen see out the season?

Williams will be very happy to be just 1 tenth off Q2, with George Russell qualifying 17th. It is clear they still have a long way to go, but to be finally mixing it with other teams shows a massive step up in performance from 2019.

The biggest shock from Qualifying undoubtedly came in Q2, with 4x World Champion Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel being knocked out in 11th place. And it’s not like it was just a bad lap from the German, Charles Leclerc was 2 tenths faster, and only just scraped into Q3 in 10th. There was nowhere to hide for Ferrari – their lack of pace was astonishing. The oldest and most successful team in Formula 1 were not longer front runners. For many, it gave off 2014 vibes, where Ferrari finished 4th in the championship behind Williams, however if this performance continues, Ferrari will have their work cut out to beat McLaren and Racing Point, and could potentially finish 5th come season’s end.

Another surprise in Q2 was returnee Esteban Ocon going out in 14th. Renault bought 3 upgrades to Austria, and were tipped to be mixing with McLaren and Racing Point, but 14th for Ocon and 10th for Daniel Ricciardo was rather underwhelming for them.

Into Q3, and the gap between Mercedes and Red Bull was ominous – both Bottas and Hamilton were in the 1:02.9’s, with Verstappen half a second off. Bottas won the provisional pole after the first set of laps in Q3, however on the final runs he went off at Turn 4. Hamilton was just behind, and was unable to beat Bottas to pole. McLaren’s Lando Norris impressed massively qualifying 4th, however with less than an hour to go before the race that became 3rd, after a controversial penalty for Hamilton for ignoring yellow flags demoted him to 5th.

Bottas celebrating pole in Austria

Hamilton was initially under investigation on Saturday after qualifying for ignoring yellow flags and exceeding track limits. The track limits penalty is imposed, with his lap time being deleted, however this applied to his slower lap meaning he remained 2nd on the grid. The stewards then did not penalise Hamilton for the yellow flag infringement, after data showed that he was shown conflicting messages about the status of the circuit.

However, on Sunday, the stewards looked again at the footage and data and controversially penalised Hamilton with a 3-place grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags. It came after McLaren were seen placing equipment in the P3 grid slot and Mercedes in the P5 position, sparking talk of a possible penalty just before the official announcement.

The Race:

Bottas controlled the start, having a huge lead after the first lap ahead of Verstappen. Norris tried an audacious move several times on Verstappen on the first lap but ultimately had settle for P3. Likewise Hamilton and Albon were battling over P4, with Albon pushing Hamilton wide at Turn 4 on Lap 1, forcing Hamilton to defend from Leclerc, Sainz and Perez.

Despite this, it didn’t take long for Hamilton to return the favour and re-overtake Albon into Turn 4 with a massive overspeed. That P3 quickly became P2 as Verstappen slowed out of Turn 1 on Lap 11. He nursed the car back to the pitlane and no Safety Car was needed. Soon after, Renault’s Ricciardo also slowed and likewise made it back to the pitlane.

Lance Stroll became the 3rd retirement also for reliability issues, but the more dramatic retirement came for Haas’ Kevin Magnussen. He was battling with Ocon, and just after the Renault overtook him into Turn 3, the Haas’ rear axil locked up, causing the Dane to fly past Ocon and into the escape road. Concerningly, the same issue happened to teammate Romain Grosjean later in the race. It was a very scrappy race for the Frenchman, having already had an off at Turn 4 before the failure happened at the same corner.

Despite last season feeling like an age ago, it was same-old for Sebastian Vettel, who spun after a clumsy move on Carlos Sainz into Turn 3, embarrassingly in a move on the man replacing him at Ferrari for 2021.

Several Safety Cars were deployed, and after the first one Bottas and Hamilton were rarely more than 2 seconds apart. Bottas drove supremely to keep the 6x World Champion behind him, all while the team were ordering both of them to stay off the kerbs for a critical gearbox sensor issue.

Intrigue was sparked however when the infamous ‘Valtteri, its James’ message came on the radio, and even more so when Bottas was given the radio message ‘Urgent Chassis Default Two One’. Many thought this was a coded version of the infamous Red Bull radio message ‘Multi 21’ from the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, which Vettel ignored and overtook then teammate Mark Webber to win. Toto Wolff however said after the race that the message was nothing to do with Multi 21.

On Lap 51, the Williams’ of George Russell sadly became the 5th retirement of the race. Looking at the end results, it was quite possible that Russell could’ve scored valuable points for the team had he saw the checkered flag, but alas it was not to be in Austria.

With the Safety Car deployed, Albon pitted for a set of Soft tyres while Mercedes stayed out on their Hards. Albon quickly dispatched Perez in the restart after a lockup from the Racing Point at Turn 3, just before another Safety Car was deployed after Raikkonen’s front right wheel bizarrely fell off.

Raikkonen's tyre falls off into the final corner

On the second restart, Albon was hounding the Mercedes of Hamilton, and went for a brave move around the outside of Turn 4 thanks to the extra grip of the Soft tyres. However Hamilton understeered wide and made contact with the rear right of the Red Bull, causing Albon to spin out of a potential win, causing flashbacks for everyone to the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix in which Hamilton did exactly the same and took Albon out of a maiden podium position.

Hamilton was then given a 5 second time penalty, along with Perez for speeding in the pitlane. At this point, the Ferrari of Leclerc was amazingly in the top 5, and in the closing stages dispatched both Norris and Perez to finish 3rd on the road, promoted to 2nd after Hamilton’s penalty.

Norris then made a strong move on Perez for 4th, making contact at Turn 3 but escaping with no damage. Within the final laps, Albon retired with reliability issues of his own, causing a Red Bull double DNF on home soil, and the AlphaTauri of Kvyat suffered a dramatic tyre blowout into Turn 1.

On the final lap of the race, Norris was in 4th just over 5 seconds behind Hamilton in 2nd, however a supreme drive gave Norris the fastest lap of the race on the last lap, and therefore secured his maiden F1 podium after bringing the gap down to 4.802s at the line.

However it was Valtteri Bottas who held on to win the opening round of the 2020 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, putting him in the lead of the Drivers' Championship.

Bottas celebrating on the podium

Norris celebrating his maiden F1 podium

It was a rare race of extreme attraction, with only 11 drivers from 20 starters finishing the race. The full results, and therefore Drivers' Championship standings can be seen below:

The full Contructors' Championship standings can be seen below: