Valtteri came home in P3 to score his third podium at the Austrian GP in his 50th race for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport. Lewis crossed the line in P5.
Lewis (197 points) leads the Drivers' Championship by 31 points from Valtteri (166 points). Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport (363 points) lead Ferrari (228 points) by 135 points in the Constructors' Championship.
Toto Wolff: From a fan's perspective, this was a really exciting race to watch; however, from our team's perspective it was a difficult day. We said before the race that the high temperatures will be a huge challenge for us and that turned out to be true. Our Achilles heel was exposed, with both drivers struggling with overheating in these incredibly warm temperatures. We had to open up the bodywork all the way, turn down the engine and had to do lifting and coasting for long stretches. So, we couldn't really race with our car today, neither attack nor defend, we were just trying to keep it alive and cooling it properly. On a more positive note, though, we still scored a good haul of points and managed to put in some decent lap times despite these limitations. However, it's clear that we have to fix our cooling problems for the coming hot European races. As we say, the bad days are the ones when we learn the most to come back stronger. And we'll be looking to do just that at the next race at Silverstone.
Andrew Shovlin: It was good to see Honda get their first win since coming back into the sport; they have worked so hard for it, so hopefully they can enjoy the moment. For us it was an incredibly tough afternoon, we were on the limit with cooling all race. We knew this was our Achilles heel and the combination of ambient temperature and altitude were just too much for us to fight today. Valtteri did a good job to get on the podium, he was having to manage a lot whilst racing today and we had to give up a lot of performance to keep things cool, so we're happy that he got some reward. Lewis was in the same situation as Valtteri with temperatures and he was having to having to manage from start to finish. He was keeping his tyres in good shape but unfortunately his front wing flap broke on the kerb at turn 10 on lap 27 and we were losing too much time so stopped for a new nose and the Hard tyre. It was a shame to lose the place to Vettel right on the end, but it was just a consequence of all the issues we were having to deal with. Whilst temperatures were the headline item for us today, we weren't particularly quick even in Qualifying, so no doubt there are a few areas that we need to investigate and improve. We're looking forward to Silverstone, the car should work better there so hopefully we can get back to fighting at the front.
Scuderia Ferrari leaves Austria with a second and fourth place courtesy of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel, which came at the end of a great race that was closely fought right from the start to the end of the 71 laps.
Charles got a perfect getaway to keep the lead, ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian also shot off the line and by the end of the opening lap he'd already made up three places to cross the line sixth behind Raikkonen and Norris. Sebastian pursued the English McLaren driver and got past on lap 4, then two laps later he also dealt with the Finn in the Alfa Romeo.
On lap 21, Sebastian was the first Scuderia Ferrari driver to pit, replacing the Softs on which he started with Hards. The German's stop took longer than usual, because of a radio problem, which meant the mechanics were not quite ready in time. This cost Sebastian around three seconds, as he rejoined behind Gasly in eighth place. Charles came in on the next lap, rejoining right behind Hamilton and Verstappen yet to stop.
At the halfway point, when all the leaders had pitted for the first time, Charles had a five second lead over Bottas, with Vettel closing fast on Verstappen and Hamilton. On the hard tyres, the Dutch Red Bull driver was lapping faster than Sebastian and caught the number 5 SF90 on lap 49, getting ahead one lap later. The team reacted immediately, switching Vettel to a more aggressive two stop strategy. Sebastian set off on Soft tyres, seven seconds behind Hamilton.
On lap 56, Verstappen caught Bottas, passed him and set off in pursuit of Charles, with fresher Hard tyres. The Dutchman caught Leclerc with six laps to go. On lap 68, he passed Charles at Turn 3, but the Ferrari man made the most of the SF90s good traction to retake the lead on the next straight. One lap later, Verstappen attacked again at the same place, but collided with Charles, which forced him to run wide. At the same time, Sebastian caught Hamilton and passed him a lap later. Verstappen took the flag 2.7 seconds ahead of the Ferrari man. Third was Bottas, just seven tenths ahead of Sebastian. The next round takes place at Silverstone in a fortnight's time.
The incident between Charles and Max was reviewed by the Stewards. Almost three hours after the end of the Grand Prix, the decision was announced that it had been a racing incident and that no further action would be taken and so the classification remained the same.
Mattia Binotto Team Principal: "Every race has a tale to tell and today's was a great one, featuring some exciting battles. For our part, we have shown that we are continuing to improve. Charles drove a really strong race from start to finish and indeed he was fantastic all weekend.
"Seb also had an excellent race: on the hard tyres he attacked and pushed to the maximum even if in doing so, they wore quickly. From that, it's clear his two stop strategy was not planned in advance, but adopted as his race evolved. There's obviously disappointment for the radio problem we had at Seb's pit stop. Not all the mechanics heard the call and that cost him precious time.
"With regards to the decision of the stewards, we fully accept it, even though we don't believe it is the right decision. They are the judges and we have to respect that. However, even though I am first and foremost a Ferrari fan, I think it's time for F1 to turn the page and to look ahead. As we often say, we should leave the drivers free to fight, as overall this will be good for the sport and good for F1. So 'bravo' to Verstappen, he drove a fantastic race today as did Charles. There will be new opportunities for us in the future."
Christian Horner: "What an unbelievable performance by Max today. To win the race here in Austria and to give Honda its first victory with a V6 hybrid is unbelievable. Winning our home race means an enormous amount to everyone in the Red Bull family. Mr Mateschitz has put so much into the sport with both Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso, so it means an incredible amount to deliver this victory for a second year running. It was a tense wait after the race but the stewards made the right decision. What happened today between Charles and Max is hard racing and I think that's what Formula One is all about - it's two young guys going for it. Formula One has come under a lot of criticism recently and I think today's race was an exciting one with overtaking, tyre degradation and drama - exactly what the doctor ordered! We came to Austria as outsiders and so to win here is a dream come true and I think that was Max's best win. It was a tough race for Pierre but he managed to make progress and pass Raikkonen. When your teammate is performing at this level the benchmark is extremely high, but with time and as his confidence builds, Pierre will close the gap. Our target in the constructors' championship is Ferrari and we need both cars to score the maximum points possible."
Renault F1 Team missed out on scoring points in the 2019 Formula 1 myWorld Austrian Grand Prix with Daniel Ricciardo twelfth and Nico Hulkenberg close behind in thirteenth in Spielberg on Sunday.
After a strong start, Nico made up three places from fifteenth on the grid and closely lingered on the edge of the top ten.
Any hopes of scoring points faded towards the latter stages of the 71-lap race with Daniel overtaking Nico for twelfth place on the last lap. Daniel had dropped two positions by the end of lap one, but recovered well throughout the race.
It's the first time since Spain the team has not scored points.
Nico started from fifteenth on Pirelli's new Medium (yellow) tyres, pitting on lap 26 for new Hard (white tyres). Daniel started in twelfth on new Mediums, pitting on lap 46 for new Softs.
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal: "Clearly, it's not a good weekend. Although we had the pace to be slightly higher up on the grid, the track exposed weaknesses of our car, similar to previous races but in a more exacerbated fashion this weekend. We need to identify if there was anything specific with set-ups or simply a feature of the chassis on which we must work."
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen finished 16th and 19th in Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, the ninth round of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship at Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.
In extremely hot and sunny conditions, Magnussen started 10th and did his best to hold position on a set of Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires around the 4.318-kilometer (2.683-mile), 10-turn circuit. He managed to do so over the opening nine laps but then began dropping positions quickly. He pitted from 15th on lap 12 for a set of White hard tires, before switching to Red softs late in the race. Along the way, he was required to serve a drive-through penalty for moving before the start signal was given on the grid.
Grosjean began the race on Yellow medium tires from his 11th grid position but quickly dropped four spots on the opening lap. He made those tires last for 35 laps before finally pitting for a set of hards from the 16th position. He resumed in 16th and held that position to the finish.
With today's results, Rich Energy Haas F1 Team remained ninth in the constructor's championship with 16 points, one behind eighth-place Toro Rosso and 16 ahead of 10th-place Williams.
Guenther Steiner: "A disappointing race, obviously. Running around like that is negatively amazing. After qualifying in fifth position, to then have a race like this, I can't say anything other than it's disappointing. We'll keep working on it, try to get a better understanding of why this kind of performance is happening from qualifying to the race. We just do not understand it, at the moment we have no clue."
Andreas Seidl, Team Principal: "Congratulations to the entire team here at the track and back home. It's a great result for McLaren, scoring important points to establish P4 in the constructors' championship. Today P6 and P8 were well-earned, confirming us for the second time in a row as the fourth fastest team. Great work from both drivers, great pit-stops, and great strategic decisions.
"Lando had a great start and an exciting first lap before he was then able to control his pace in P6 on Soft tyres. After the pit-stop we switched to Medium tyres and just did enough to match the times of [Pierre] Gasly to stay in front of him.
"Carlos made a great start from last position and then had to do a long first stint on the Medium tyre to create the opportunity to attack on the Hard tyre in the second half of the race. He made brilliant overtaking moves and his charge only ended when he ran wide once and broke the front wing when he was in sight of overtaking Gasly. After this he did an excellent job to bring it home in eighth.
"We're looking forward to Silverstone and our home grand prix now but this was a brilliant race for Formula 1 today, not just in the midfield but also at the front, which was important after the negative comments of the last week."
Otmar Szafnauer: "A highly entertaining race today, throughout the field. Obviously, we're disappointed not to come away with points - but we were right in the mix of a tight midfield battle. When it's this close, a tenth here and there can make a big difference and we were just shy of where we needed to be. But it looks like it's going to ebb and flow throughout the season, so we need to keep our heads down and keep pushing. We now look forward to our home race at Silverstone."
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: "I am very pleased with the work we did today. We put two cars in the points for the first time this season and we showed again we can compete towards the front of the midfield. Both Kimi and Antonio raced intelligently, knowing when to attack and when to look after their tyres, and to have both scoring is a reward for the whole team. We could have perhaps scored a few more points in the end, when we were catching Sainz with both cars, but in the end we can be satisfied of what we got. We have been showing improvement in the last few races, so we will aim to build on that and continue our good run of points."
Jody Egginton (Technical Director): "Qualifying out of position made today's race very difficult. The drivers pushed as hard as possible early on whilst also having to manage brakes and PU temperatures, which slowed down any progress. Once traffic was cleared, Alex was able to run some reasonable lap times and closed in on the pack ahead, but ultimately, there was some time lost either side of the pitstop which limited the progress we could have had. Once Dany got free of traffic, he still had to manage his tyres due to some rear brake duct damage and therefore, he wasn't able to make any progress. Today definitely wasn't one of our best days and we have a lot of analysis to do ahead of the next race to improve on the weaknesses shown here. We will be focused on this, aiming to come back stronger in the next event."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "First, I'd like to congratulate Honda, Red Bull Racing and a great Max Verstappen for this fantastic victory here at the Red Bull Ring. They have done a terrific job in Sakura to achieve this result and the team did an amazing job. As for Toro Rosso, there is not much to say. We did not perform well today."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "Thanks to the efforts of all the Honda F1 staff in Japan and the UK, who worked tirelessly on our PU development, we finally made it, our first win in the hybrid era, the first since Hungary 2006. And a special word of thanks to all their families who supported them. Thanks of course to Max for a great drive and to Aston Martin Red Bull Racing for providing him with a fantastic car. We must not forget the great contribution made by Scuderia Toro Rosso, who helped us get back on the right path last year. Honda has not done this alone and so we want to acknowledge the contribution of our outside suppliers. This win is also a way of saying thank you to all our fans, all over the world, for their continued support. We have been back in this sport since 2015, but today feels like a new beginning. While we can enjoy the celebrations for a short while, we must get back to work as soon as possible, because we still need to close our performance gap to the quickest teams."
George Russell finished 18th and Robert Kubica 20th in the Austrian Grand Prix. Robert lined up 17th on the grid with George starting from the pitlane, both drivers on the medium Pirelli tyre.
Both drivers ran a one-stop race to change on to the hard Pirelli tyre, with Robert pitting on lap 19 with George stopping on lap 28.
Dave Robson, Senior Race Engineer: Having found some damage to George's front wing following qualifying, we opted to fit a spare, and, due to a small specification change, we were forced to start from the pitlane. Despite this, George drove very well and was able to race with the Haas and Toro Rosso cars at the beginning of the race, whilst everyone started to manage their brakes and power units. Robert meanwhile had a strong start and opening corners, gaining several places. Unfortunately, he couldn't hold on to them beyond lap one.
Once Magnussen had pitted and taken his drive-through penalty, we were able to pit Robert for new tyres and emerge ahead of him. We hoped that straight line speed and power unit temperatures might allow Robert to stay ahead of the Haas but this wasn't the case and Robert had then to endure a difficult race as he absorbed a lot of blue flags.
George was able to complete a good opening stint on the Option tyre and stay close to Kvyat. We pitted into a decent track position and began to close the gap to Kvyat. Thanks to another excellent effort from our crew, George's pitstop was much better than Kvyat's and we almost emerged ahead. Unfortunately, once Kvyat had the track position, he was able to pull away and George's race became one of defending against Magnussen. He did this very well whilst managing his Prime tyre to the end, finishing 18th.
The whole team did a good job of managing the car in the demanding conditions of Austria and again get two cars home.
With a peak track temperature of 58 degrees centigrade, the Austrian Grand Prix was even hotter than the French Grand Prix last weekend. Despite these very demanding conditions, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen took a spectacular second consecutive Austrian Grand Prix victory, despite making a bad start from second on the grid, using a medium-hard strategy.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc - who led most of the race from pole – finished second going from soft to hard. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas completed the podium using the same strategy as Verstappen, starting on medium and moving onto hard.
Just three out of the top 10 qualifiers started on the medium tyre, but this was the most popular starting tyre for the grid as a whole, with all but seven drivers beginning on the yellow compound.
Three teams split their strategies, with Red Bull, Haas, and McLaren each starting one car on the soft tyre and one car on the medium.
There was an interesting strategic battle between Ferrari and Mercedes, which started their cars on the soft and the medium tyres respectively. This however was affected by long pit stops.
Following a number of grid penalties, several drivers used strategy to boost their positions. McLaren's Carlos Sainz went from 19th on the grid to eighth at the finish, using a medium-hard strategy with a long opening stint.
Following the race, both Verstappen and Leclerc were summoned to the stewards, pending the confirmation of final results.
Mario Isola: "Today we had a thrilling race all the way to the finish, with a fantastic battle between two of the most exciting and talented young drivers in the sport. Congratulations to both Max and Charles for two great drives today. From a tyre perspective, we were satisfied with the performance of all three compounds, which each played an important part in the race, despite the hottest track temperatures seen all year. Nonetheless, nearly all the drivers completed just one stop, while Lando Norris in sixth didn't even use the hardest compound. Now we remain in Spielberg for two days of testing 2020 tyres together with Alfa Romeo, which also brought two cars home in the points today."
