Austrian Grand Prix RECAP: Max Verstappen claims dominant win to extend championship lead

Lewis Hamilton's 'natural ability is fantastic' says Button

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Austrian Grand Prix: Summary

  • Max Verstappen dominated from lights to flag to extend his championship lead to 32 points
  • Valtteri Bottas takes second place after Mercedes ordered Lewis Hamilton to switch positions
  • Lando Norris claims a podium with an impressive third, despite a five-second penalty
  • Hamilton stuck down in fourth after a tough afternoon

Live race updates

Race results

  1. Max Verstappen
  2. Valtteri Bottas
  3. Lando Norris
  4. Lewis Hamilton
  5. Carlos Sainz
  6. Sergio Perez
  7. Daniel Ricciardo
  8. Charles Leclerc
  9. Pierre Gasly
  10. Fernando Alonso
  11. George Russell
  12. Yuki Tsunoda
  13. Lance Stroll
  14. Antonio Giovinazzi
  15. Nicholas Latifi
  16. Kimi Raikkonen
  17. Sebastian Vettel
  18. Mick Schumacher
  19. Nikita Mazepin
  20. Eseban Ocon

FINAL LAP: Sainz passes Ricciardo for sixth to put the cap on an impressive display from the Spaniard. Ricciardo has been superb, but his tyres weren’t there at the end. Verstappen crosses the line to win by an absolute street. Valtteri Bottas comes home in second, some 18 seconds adrift, with arguably the driver of the day, Lando Norris, grabbing a podium in third.

Hamilton can only manage fourth, with Sainz and Ricciardo set to jump above Perez in the order due to the Mexican’s penalties.

LAP 68: Disappointment in the Williams garage as Alonso finally gets past Russell, who has driven a superb race, but just didn’t have the car to keep the Alpine behind him. It looks like he’s going to agonisingly miss out on the points once again. 

LAP 67: George Russell is gamely holding off former world champion Fernando Alonso, while Carlos Sainz has been allowed past Charles Leclerc to chase down Daniel Ricciardo. Toward the front, Lando Norris is still within two seconds of Valtteri Bottas.

LAP 61: Somewhat surprisingly, Red Bull pit Verstappen to give him some fresh rubber to take him to the end of the race. He leaves the pit lane still 7 seconds ahead of Bottas in second. Norris is third, with a gap of 20 seconds to Lewis Hamilton in fourth.

Lap 54: Things are getting interesting in the battle for second. Valtteri Bottas is closing in on Hamilton and the pair perform a choreographed position swap going into Turn 1. But hot on their heels is none other than Lando Norris, who is closing in and looking to fight for the podium. Can he pass Hamilton? YES HE CAN! 

Meanwhile, Perez has been given ANOTHER five-second time penalty for running Leclerc off the track. 

LAP 47: Charles Leclerc tries to go around the outside of Perez – again. And Perez forces him into the gravel – again. Will the stewards get involved – again? Watch this space!

LAP 46: Lando Norris is driving a superb race in fourth. He’s still within range of the two Mercedes ahead of him, and is lapping strongly on similarly-aged tyres. Could a podium be on the cards for Lando?

LAP 40: The boot is on the other foot now! After complaining of being forced off the track by Norris, now it’s Perez who is forcing someone into the gravel. Charles Leclerc is the victim, and he’s not happy, especially as there seemed to be a fair degree of contact between the pair mid-corner at Turn 2. 

And it didn’t take the stewards long to decide what to do. Perez gets a five-second penalty. It’s soft, but given the fact Norris received the same for a less aggressive move earlier in the race, it had to happen for consistency purposes.

LAP 38: George Russell gets a little screen time, and it’s well worth watching a the Brit catches and passes Lance Stroll for 14th place. He may be down the order compared to his eighth-place start, but he’s running a longer stint on his tyres and his rivals ahead, who are on two-stop strategies, should come back to him as the race unfolds.

Elsewhere, Daniel Ricciardo has been let off the leash as he looks to attack Pierre Gasly for sixth. He’s having a superb race and seems much more himself after some depressing results of late.

LAP 33: Verstappen pits without fuss and maintains his huge lead. Hamilton is 12 seconds behind the Dutchman. The Mercedes man has been told to look after his tyres in a bid to get to the end of the race. Expect Verstappen and Red Bull to cover that strategy and do exactly the same. 

LAP 32: Norris and Bottas both pit, with the Finn taking advantage of the Brit’s five-second penalty to pass him in pit lane. He’s now in third.

Hamilton comes in and pits in 2.2 seconds, with Verstappen set to come in at the end of this lap.

LAP 25: Hamilton has put 3.1 seconds between himself and Norris already, but he faces a big battle to reel in Verstappen. The Dutchman is currently 10.7 seconds clear in the lead. Both men are still to pit, however, and the strategy battle between Red Bull and Mercedes will be every bit as intriguing as the battle on the track.

LAP 20: Disaster for Lando Norris. First, he’s slapped with a five-second time penalty from the stewards for forcing Perez off the track. Then the McLaren man was passed by Hamilton for second in the same lap. 

However, things might not be too great for Hamilton, either. Norris just told his crew that Hamilton’s “brakes are on fire.”

Hamilton was on the radio, too, but he just wanted to pay tribute to his fellow countryman. “Such a great driver, Lando,” he said.

LAP 14: The stewards are investigating the incident between Norris and Perez that saw the latter go into the gravel. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner admitted to Sky Sports F1 that he thought it was a racing incident. But the stewards are having a look.

LAP 11: Lewis Hamilton is reporting that it’s “very hard to follow” Lando Norris and, despite the advantage of DRS, he hasn’t been able to get his Mercedes past the McLaren yet. Norris, meanwhile, isn’t interested in his team’s updates on Pierre Gasly’s pace. Clearly, the aim is to ensure he finishes ahead of the AlphaTauri racer, but with the Brit running second to Gasly’s fifth, he’s not bothered. “I don’t care!” he said, over radio.

LAP 8: Max Verstappen is banging in the fastest laps as he builds an advantage at the head of the field. He’s 3.3 seconds clear of Norris, who is just ahead of Hamilton, who now has DRS. Daniel Ricciardo has carved through the field and is up to ninth, ahead of Perez, who is mired in 10th after his brief trip into the kitty litter.

LAP 4: Verstappen backs up the pack and causes chaos in the restart. Norris somehow fights off Perez and, with the Mercedes pair charging up behind them, the Red Bull man loses it into the gravel and will have to fight his way back through the pack.

Perez was straight onto the radio claiming Norris “pushed me off” but he never seemed to be ahead of the Briton, so that’s an arguable point. What we do know is Norris is still second, and he’s being caught by Lewis Hamilton, who is desperate to get past the McLaren and get after Verstappen out front.

LIGHTS OUT! We’re off and running at the Austrian Grand Prix, and it’s Max Verstappen who goes into Turn 1 first. Norris keeps it clean in second and Lewis Hamilton is looking racy already. He’s chasing down Perez. But just as things seemed to be getting settled, the organisers release the safety car after Sebastian Ocon was caught in a sandwich at the back of the pack after Turn 2.

1:50pm: Another man to watch today is Williams’ George Russell. The young Englishman is desperate to be in the seat of a competitive car as soon as possible, and rumours linking him with Valtteri Bottas’ seat at Mercedes refuse to go away.

Today, he’s in great shape after qualifying ninth, then moving up to eighth after Sebastian Vettel’s three-place grid penalty for impeding Fernando Alonso’s hot lap in qualifying.

Russell will not only start further up the grid, he’ll also get the chance to start the race on the same medium-compound tyres as the quick guys ahead of him. It’s the best possible scenario for the Williams man, who will look to secure his first race points for Williams today.

But there’s been a pre-race scare, with Russell reporting issues with the back of his car during his out lap. His team told him the car’s data is showing no problems and to form up on the grid, as usual. But we won’t know for sure until the lights go out.

Will Russell’s car be OK? Can he show decent race pace like he did last week before he was forced out of the race? Can he get a top 10 finish? His progress will be one of the fascinating stories of today’s race.

1:45pm: While it might be a potentially huge day for Norris and McLaren, it’s a damage limitation exercise for the team that has dominated F1 for the past seven years.

Mercedes have Hamilton down in fourth and Bottas in fifth, which means they face a mountainous task to try to get up to the sharp end and affect the race from a strategy point of view.

Hamilton has already written off his chances of victory today. But you never know in this sport. One good start from the world champ and a bad first few corners from Verstappen could throw things up in the air very swiftly indeed.

1:40pm: It’s a huge day for Lando Norris, who secured his first F1 front-row start with a blistering lap that was just 48 thousandths of a second shy of Verstappen’s pole time.

The Englishman could throw a spanner in the works of Red Bull’s plans today if he can beat Verstappen to the first turn.

Expect him to go “full send” in a bid to take the lead. And from there? Who knows just how his day might pan out. But if he can secure a top five finish, that’ll be considered a good day’s work for the McLaren team.

1:30pm: Good afternoon, and welcome to Express Sport’s live coverage of the Austrian Grand Prix. For the second week in a row, the action comes to us from the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.

It’s the home track of Red Bull Racing, and Max Verstappen dominated proceedings as he cruised to an easy win here last week.

Can he do the same again today? Follow along with us and we’ll find out together!

Austrian Grand Prix: Starting Grid

1. Max Verstappen  |  2. Lando Norris

3. Sergio Perez  |  4. Lewis Hamilton

5. Valtteri Bottas  |  6. Pierre Gasly

7. Yuki Tsunoda  |  8. George Russell

9. Lance Stroll  |  10. Carlos Sainz

11. Sebastian Vettel*  |  12. Charles Leclerc

13. Daniel Ricciardo  |  14. Fernando Alonso

15. Antonio Giovinazzi  |  16. Kimi Raikkonen

17. Esteban Ocon  |  18. Nicholas Latifi

19. Mick Schumacher  |  20. Nikita Mazepin

*Vettel penalised three grid places for blocking during qualifying

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