A wet weather masterclass from Hamilton on Saturday. (And Sunday wasn’t bad either.)
After last week’s chaos, normal service was resumed at the second event around the Spielberg track, in the shape of a Lewis Hamilton domination, a Mercedes 1-2, an impressive Max Verstappen podium and a Ferrari calamity at the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix.
His troubles at the last race led to Hamilton being asked some fairly ridiculous questions as to whether he should focus more on racing than activism. He answered them in emphatic style with one of his very best pole positions – there are 89 of them, remember – and a controlled victory on Sunday. He then doubled down on that response with a black power salute on the podium.
Saturday’s qualifying took place in the wettest conditions for some time and gave the drivers the platform to demonstrate every ounce of their skill and remind any doubters that they are the very best in the world. Hamilton and Verstappen stood out throughout the session, seemingly on another plane to the others. The world champion was not content with that, though, and moved onto another plane again, with a final lap that was 1.2 seconds faster than Verstappen in second; the gap between first and second was larger than the one between second and 10th. Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff described the lap as “out of this world” and former driver Mark Webber tweeted “there’s a F1 category and there’s then a F1-plus category. Lewis is/was in a different league”.
There were also starring performances from Carlos Sainz in third, Esteban Ocon in fifth and George Russell, who dragged his Williams out of Q1 for the first time and came within a tenth of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari for a place in Q3, eventually lining up 11th on the grid.
Sunday was less eventful for the most part but still an entertaining race. Hamilton led from the front whilst teammate Valtteri Bottas steadily worked his way back up to second, eventually passing Verstappen after an excellent duel in the final few laps. There was plenty of midfield action, with Sergio Pérez recovering from 17th on the grid to even challenge Albon for 4th at the end.
In the process, however, he damaged his front wing and fell back into the clutches of Lando Norris, Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo at the final corner, resulting in a three-way photo finish. It was another storming finish from Norris who, after claiming a last-gasp podium seven days earlier, moved up from ninth to fifth in the dying stages after a long first stint. He remains third in the championship and is really coming into his own in his second season of F1.
Further back, things were going from bad to worse to whatever-is-below-that for the Scuderia.
A Horse Far From Prancing
Ferrari rushed through updates, that had originally been intended for the Hungarian Grand Prix next week, in order to have a direct comparison to the previous weekend’s race on the same track. The drivers reported an improvement during Friday’s practice sessions, but the times didn’t appear noticeably better and, whilst the soaking qualifying conditions will have complicated matters, 10th and 14th on the grid was worse than they had managed the week prior.
But still, they had the race on Sunday to try and make up ground and – at the very least – amass some useful data in their recovery efforts…right?
A clumsy, overambitious move from Charles Leclerc left him bumping over the kerbs and landing on his teammate, Sebastian Vettel. The German returned to the pits with his rear wing hanging off and retired immediately; Leclerc went back out but only managed a further three laps before the damage – mostly to the floor of the car – was pronounced terminal.
Leclerc was, at least, refreshingly contrite when it came to his culpability for the incident, on what was a far-from-smooth weekend for the Monegasque all round. It began with the news that he had returned home to Monaco for the birthday party of his girlfriend’s sister and not adhered to social distancing whilst there. He may have had two tests before returning to the track but risking everything when the sport has put so much effort into its return, was immature and arrogant. He was very lucky to escape with just a warning.
And yet, that is the least of his worries, considering the position his team is now in. The Italian press have been predictably cutting (whilst romantic, of course) in their appraisal of the effective national team’s current predicament. They must hope that the remaining haul of updates, to be delivered in Budapest, will make a significant difference, or this season looks set to become the biggest embarrassment in their recent history.
The ‘Pink Mercedes’ Under the Microscope
Racing Point are yet to fully delivered on their considerable potential this season, thanks to a retirement at the first race and a scrappy qualifying at the second, but it has become increasingly apparent to the paddock that the pink cars are just as quick as they had feared.
This was demonstrated by Pérez’s charge through the field and then cemented by the fact that he was effectively being held up by the second Red Bull towards the end. As Stroll boisterously pointed out, they have “debatably the second fastest F1 car”.
So, Renault – clearly waiting to enact vengeance after Racing Point protested the French team’s best result in Japan last year – have decided to pull the trigger and lodged a protest over the eligibility of the Racing Point brake ducts.
The paddock’s suspicions over the similarities between this year’s Racing Point and last year’s championship-winning Mercedes are well-known. The Silverstone-based team have been steadfast in their assertion that they simply copied the best car of last year and did so within the rules.
The stewards have classed the protest as admissible and impounded the brake ducts, whilst also requesting that Mercedes provide parts from last year’s car, but Racing Point remain resolute and say they “expect the FIA to dismiss the misconceived protest”. This will likely trundle on for a fair while.
The Styrian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds
Answering the Burning Questions
Will we see much difference in pace from anyone since the last race? Nothing particularly noticeable.
Can Ferrari bring some updates in time for this weekend? They did, but they didn’t get much use out of them.
Will there be fewer mechanical issues now that the cobwebs are gone? Yep, just one mechanical failure during the race.
Can Lewis Hamilton claw back some ground on his teammate? He can.
With thunderstorms forecast through the weekend, will we have a wet and wild qualifying and/or race? Not during the race, but the qualifying was emphatically wet and wild.
