AUSTRIAN GP - RACE - RE-CAP & RESULTS
Lewis Hamilton initially took the race lead off the line, with pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas dropping to second with Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen third and fourth.
But Mercedes’ race began to unfold when Bottas coasted to a stop early in the race. He came to a stop with a gear-box issue on track, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car. Ferrari and Red Bull pitted both their drivers under the VSC, but Mercedes opted to keep Hamilton out.
The team later brought Hamilton in under green flags, dropping the reigning champion to fourth, behind the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, and handing Verstappen the race lead.
While Verstappen built a gap at the front of the field, his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was scrapping with Raikkonen for the runner up position. The pair ran side by side for a number of corners, but the Ferrari just had the edge, with Ricciardo struggling with blistering on his Pirelli tyres. Ricciardo was forced to take a second pit stop for fresh tyres, dropping him out of the podium battle.
Behind them, the recovering Sebastian Vettel, who started sixth after a grid penalty, managed to find a way past Hamilton to make it a Ferrari 2-3.
The positions remained unchanged until, in the closing stages of the race, Hamilton pulled to the side of the track, telling his team he “lost power”. The two words signalled Hamilton’s first retirement since Malaysia 2016 and Mercedes’ first double DNF since Spain of the same year.
Meanwhile, the Ferraris were closing the gap to Verstappen at the front of the field. Raikkonen was able to cut the gap from more than 10 seconds to just 1.5s, but was never close enough to make a move on the Red Bull.
Verstappen took his fourth career victory and first of the season, ahead of Raikkonen and Vettel.
There was less to celebrate on the other side of the garage. Ricciardo had been battling for fourth with Hamilton when he was forced to stop on track with a hydraulics problem.
The retirements ahead meant the Haas of Romain Grosjean finished fourth after a quiet race from sixth on the grid. Team-mate Kevin Magnussen followed him across the line to take fifth, Haas’ best Formula 1 finish in its short history.
After a difficult start to its 200th F1 race, Force India also enjoyed a strong finish, with Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez finishing sixth and seventh.
Fernando Alonso started the race from the pit lane after McLaren opted to change his front wing in parc ferme. It was a slow start to the race for Alonso, but he quickly began to pick up positions, battling with Pierre Gasly and the Saubers of Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson in the closing stages of the race. Some impressive overtakes put Alonso eighth, his first points finish since Spain, with Leclerc and Ericsson completing the top 10.
Gasly finished just outside the top 10 ahead of the lone Renault of Carlos Sainz.
Sainz’s team-mate Nico Hulkenberg had been the first casualty of the Red Bull Ring. Not long before Bottas’ retirement, Hulkenberg suffered a dramatic engine failure, with smoke and flames erupting from the back of his Renault.
The Williams’ duo of Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll took 13th and 14th, the final finishers.
McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne, who spent most of the race running at the back of the field after an early pit stop, retired six laps before the chequered flag with a gearbox issue. Brendon Hartley lasted 54 of the 71 laps before retiring with a mechanical problem.
RESULTS:
1. Max Verstappen / Red Bull Racing-TAG-Heuer / Netherlands / + 25 Points
2. Kimi Raikkonen / Ferrari-Ferrari / Finland / + 18 Points
3. Sebastian Vettel / Ferrari-Ferrari / Germany / + 15 Points
4. Romain Grosjean / Haas-Ferrari / France / + 12 Points
5. Kevin Magnussen / Haas-Ferrari / Denmark / + 10 Points
6. Esteban Ocon / Force India-Mercedes / France / + 8 Points
7. Sergio Perez / Force India-Mercedes / Mexico / + 6 Points
8. Fernando Alonso / McLaren-Renault / Spain / + 4 Points
9. Charles Leclerc / Sauber-Ferrari / Monaco / + 2 Points
10. Marcus Ericsson / Sauber-Ferrari / Sweden / + 1 Point
11. Pierre Gasly / Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda / France
12. Carlos Sainz / Renault-Renault / Spain
13. Sergey Sirotkin / Williams-Mercedes / Russia
14. Lance Stroll / Williams-Mercedes / Canada
15. Stoffel Vandoorne / McLaren-Renault / Belgium / DNF / Gearbox*
RETIRED - Lewis Hamilton / Mercedes-Mercedes / Great Britain / Fuel Pressure
RETIRED - Brendon Hartley / Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda / New Zealand / Mechanical Failure
RETIRED - Daniel Ricciardo / Red Bull Racing-TAG-Heuer / Australia / Exhaust
RETIRED – Valtteri Bottas / Mercedes-Mercedes / Finland / Hydraulics
RETIRED – Nico Hulkenberg / Renault-Renault / Germany / Power Unit
* - Notes Stoffel Vandoorne completed at least 90% of the race distance and was qualified as finished, despite his retirement
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Article Written By: Bethonie Waring
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