FORMULA 1
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 © Getty Images George Russell won the Austrian Grand Prix after a collision between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen on lap 64, caused both drivers to pit with punctures. Norris ultimately ended up with retiring the car after too much damage with Verstappen receiving a ten-second time penalty for the incident. Race Facts
 © Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool Max Verstappen started on pole for the Austrian Grand Prix. He managed to hold off Norris into the first corner, but Russell and Norris end up side by side into the second corner, Norris ultimately holds off Russell. Leclerc, Piastri and Perez touch on the first corner, and Leclerc picks up damage to his front wing, having to pit for a new front wing and dropping him down to P19 and 40s behind the leader. Piastri gets pushed off track but stays in 7th place. Hamilton gets past Sainz and tries to get past Russell and succeeds but Russell regains the position by using DRS to get around him before Turn 4. Hamilton was under investigation for leaving the track and gaining a position over Sainz, but it was later ruled no further investigation. Hamilton allows Sainz to overtake and gives the position back. Both Haas drivers move into the top 10, with Ocon up into P8 ahead of Riccardo. On lap 11, Magnussen and Riccardo pitted onto a set of hard tyres, with Hulkenberg and Alonso pitting on lap 12. Sargeant also pitted for the second time onto a set of hard tyres. On lap 13 Verstappen was 5.112s ahead of the rest of the field with Norris over 3 seconds ahead of Russell, followed by Sainz, Hamilton, Piastri and Perez holding the top seven spots. Albon pits and manages to overtake Leclerc on lap 15. Leclerc comes back down the field after his early pit stop, but Albon only manages to overtake Sergeant by lap 16. Both Haas tyres scrap between each other after their pit stops but were told on the radio to manage their tyres.  © Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool Leclerc, on hard tyres, pits for the second time after 16 laps, back onto the medium tyres and comes back out into P20 but quickly overtakes Sargeant again, who also had a front wing change on the first lap. Verstappen laps the back markers as Ocon and Bottas pit on lap 20, both onto hard tyres. Followed by Gasly, Stroll, Hamilton, Tsunoda, Perez and Sargeant. Alonso received a 10-second penalty for forcing Zhou off track and causing a collision at Turn 3. Hamilton also received a five-second time penalty for crossing the white line at the pit entry. After the first set of pit stops, everyone was running on hards except for Russell, who changed onto mediums on lap 26. Verstappen holds onto the race lead, followed by Norris, 6.685 seconds behind the leader, and Russell in third. Sainz, Hamilton, Piastri, Hulkenberg, Perez, Magnussen, and Riccardo round off the top ten on lap 27. Verstappen was under investigation for an unsafe release, later ruled no further investigation but also complained on the radio about gear issues, having to be talked through some changes by his race mechanic. Perez also received a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Norris held onto the fastest lap, looking comfortable in P2 on the hard tyres, 3.864s ahead of Russell on lap 32. During lap 33, Riccardo held up the drivers behind him. Ocon and Gasly battled behind Alonso and Riccardo, who were in a DRS train. All four cars struggled to catch the Haas drivers in 8th and 9th place. Leclerc pits for the third time onto another set of medium tyres on lap 34 and rejoins the track in the 18th spot. Piastri makes progress gaining on Hamilton just 2.5s behind. The Alpine drivers continued to fight it out until Gasly overtook Ocon on lap 41 after a long time of trying. But Ocon continued to close on the back of Gasly, not wanting to give up 8th place - hard but clean racing between the teammates.  © Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool Both Norris and Verstappen complained about their tyres starting to go as Verstappen lost time in traffic while Norris was gaining on him. Albon also received a five-second time penalty for crossing the white line on the pit entry. Russell pits for the second time onto hard tyres after getting caught up with lapped cars fighting for positions. Piastri closed up to Hamilton and overtook him at Turn 3 on lap 48, moving Piastri up to P3. Russell takes the fastest lap of the Grand Prix on lap 49 after just pitting for new tyres and coming back onto the track in P5. With a short and fast lap time, all the cars end up bunched up. Hulkenberg and Magnussen lap faster than Verstappen in the lead, but they were only in 8th and 9th place. Verstappen complained so much about his tyres that he pitted on lap 51, and Norris followed him in, both changing onto medium. Verstappen had a very slow 6.5secs pit stop, closing the gap between him and Norris to only 2.999s. Verstappen then locked up, allowing Norris to gain even more with a gap of only 1.185s going into lap 53. Norris continued to gain, regaining the fastest lap and closing the gap within the DRS range of Verstappen on lap 54. Hamilton pitted, served his time penalty, and rejoined the track in P6. Just as Norris attacked Verstappen into Turn 3, but he couldn't quite get past. With 15 laps to go, Norris continued to push Verstappen, keeping with the DRS range with 0.766s. Russell was still 14.006s behind in P3, but Norris received a black-and-white flag for track limits. Norris lunges and gets past Verstappen into Turn 3, but he runs wide off the track to gain the position. He then opted to let Verstappen back through, dropping back to P2. But in the process, Norris is investigated for track limits and receives a five-second time penalty after previously receiving a black-and-white flag for track limits. Norris continued to attack and fight it out with Verstappen with ten laps to go, but Verstappen held him off. He tried repeatedly to overtake, with Verstappen going wide at Turn 3, but Verstappen held the lead. After fighting backwards and forwards on lap 64, Verstappen and Norris collided under braking, and both ended up with punctures after hitting each other at Turn 3, allowing Russell to take the race lead. Verstappen pitted and rejoined the track on soft tyres, joining the track in P6. Verstappen received a ten-second penalty for causing the incident with Norris. Norris, also with a puncture, has to take another lap and pits with a delaminated right rear and bits flying off the car. McLaren then retired Norris's car. Piastri then passed Sainz to move up into P2, just 2.8s behind Russell, but he ran out of laps to catch George. George Russell wins the Austrian Grand Prix, with Piastri and Sainz finishing off the podium spots.  © Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool Race Results1) George Russell 1:24:22.798 2) Oscar Piastri +1.906 3) Carlos Sainz +4.533 4) Lewis Hamilton +23.142 5) Max Verstappen +37.253 6) Nico Hulkenberg +54.088 7) Sergio Perez +54.672 8) Kevin Magnussen +60.355 9) Daniel Riccardo +61.169 10) Pierre Gasly +61.766 11) Charles Leclerc +67.056 12) Esteban Ocon +68.325 13) Lance Stroll +1 Lap 14) Yuki Tsunoda 15) Alex Albon 16) Valtteri Bottas 17) Zhou Guanyu 18) Fernando Alonso 19) Logan Sargeant DNF Lando Norris George Russell, secured Mercedes first win of the 2024 season had this to say about his win: “Incredible, it was a tough fight out there at the beginning of the race just to hold onto that P3 and I saw on the TV Max and Lando getting pretty hard, I knew Lando would be wanting to get that race win. “The team have done an amazing job to get us into this fight and you’ve got to be there to pick it up the pieces and that’s where we were. “I couldn’t believe how close were to Max and Lando, it was a possibility, you are always dreaming but as I said you are so proud to be back on the top step. The team have worked so hard, they’ve made so many strides since the start of the season. The last two races have been incredible so more to come.”  © Getty Images  Anny Wooldridge
Writer for the F1 Journal
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