The hills are alive, with the sound of V6 hybrids.
The Burning Questions
Can Mercedes turn around their form on Red Bull’s home track?
Will we see a wet and wild weekend?
Can Ferrari solve their race pace/degradation issues?
The Track
THE STATS
- Track Length: 4.318 km
- Laps: 71
- Race Distance: 306.452 km
- Maximum Speed: 327 km/h
- Lap Time at Full Throttle: 74%
- First Grand Prix: 2020 (Styrian GP) | 1970 (Spielberg) | 1963 (Austrian GP)
- Race Lap Record: Carlos Sainz | McLaren | 2020 | 1:05.619
- Outright Lap Record: Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 2019 | 1:28.319
- Most Driver Wins: Alain Prost | 1983, 1985, 1986
- Most Constructor Wins: McLaren | 1984, 1985, 1986, 1998, 2000, 2001
The Trivia
- The “Bull of Spielberg” took one and a half years to be built – it is 18 metres high and weighs 68 tons
- The biggest uphill slope at the Red Bull Ring stands at a 12% incline
- Styria is the most forested state in Austria at 61.3%
- A deer has made it onto the track twice – a fortunate escape in 2001, but in 1987 one was struck by Stefan Johansson’s McLaren
The Weather
The Quotes
Max Verstappen | “We had a lot of good races in the past here but it is not a guarantee it is going to happen again. We are of course very motivated to try to have a good race.”
Lewis Hamilton | “We know how strong Red Bull are. But we come here with an optimistic approach, that what we have learned will hopefully help us take a small step forwards. Even if we have made a small step forwards, it is a small step in the right direction.”
Christian Horner | [On the pit stop regulation changes] “If you can’t be beaten, then the most logical thing is for your competitors to try and slow you down,” he said. And that’s obviously what’s happening here.”
Carlos Sainz | “We need to experiment with different set-up directions, different configurations that we can put in the car to at least in the short term mitigate the problems and there’s already very big investigations being launched in the medium and long-term to try and solve the issue back at the factory.”
The Friday Form
Practice 2 Top 5
1 | Max Verstappen | 1:05.412 | 37 Laps
2 | Daniel Ricciardo | 1:05.748 | 35 Laps
3 | Esteban Ocon | 1:05.790 | 35 Laps
4 | Lewis Hamilton | 1:05.796 | 35 Laps
5 | Fernando Alonso | 1:05.827 | 39 Laps
Practice 1 Top 5
1 | Max Verstappen | 1:05.910 | 34 Laps
2 | Pierre Gasly | 1:06.166 | 32 Laps
3 | Lewis Hamilton | 1:06.332 | 32 Laps
4 | Valtteri Bottas | 1:06.386 | 34 Laps
5 | Yuki Tsunoda | 1:06.397 | 32 Laps
Max Verstappen topped both practice sessions around the picturesque Styrian mountains, but things may be closer than they appear at the front.
Title rival Lewis Hamilton had a lap time deleted – for running slightly wide at the final corner – which would have seen him narrowly top the Practice 2 timesheets.
The AlphaTauris looked very strong in the morning session but an engine issue consigned Pierre Gasly to watch from the pits in the afternoon. And it was the Alpines who then filled that vacant spot of unlikely top 5 drivers.
The rain forecast for Practice Two never appeared, but the clouds appear to be set to loom ominously over the rest of the weekend.
THE PHOTOS
The Predictions
Podium
Pole Position
Fastest Lap
Driver of the Day
