Red Bull’s Max Verstappen grabbed a shock Austrian Grand Prix win after both polesitter Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton retired as Mercedes was hit with two mechanical failures.
Hamilton led the opening laps after vaulting ahead of team-mate Bottas at the start.
The Mercedes one-two at the front was curtailed when Bottas experienced a loss of hydraulic pressure on lap 16 of 71. The stricken Mercedes triggered a virtual safety car.
Both Red Bulls and both Ferraris pitted during the VSC. Race leader Hamilton stayed out.
Verstappen, who nudged passed Kimi Raikkonen at Turn 7 on the opening lap of the race, emerged from the pits 13 seconds behind Hamilton. When the sole remaining Mercedes pitted, he inherited the lead.
Building a lead of seven seconds, Verstappen was able to manage the race from the front. Despite a blister emerging on his left-rear tyre, he was able to retain the lead to take victory.
The Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel became his closest challengers at the end of the race.
Raikkonen inherited second place when Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo had to make a second pitstop mid-race as a result of heavy blistering of his rear tyres.
While Hamilton had emerged from his pitstop in fourth place ahead of Vettel, the Ferrari driver was able to pass at the heavy braking zone of Turn 2.
As a result, Raikkonen finished in second and was a slender 1.5s behind Verstappen at the end of the race. Vettel regains the championship lead with third place from sixth on the grid.
With seven laps remaining, Hamilton suffered a severe loss of power and retired from the race. He had made a second pitstop before the issue and was en route to fourth place before unreliability intervened.
The retirement ends a record 33-race points scoring streak for Hamilton. Mercedes has suffered its first mechanical double-DNF of the hybrid era.
Ricciardo was also sidelined when his Red Bull suffered a gearbox issue 10 laps before Hamilton’s problem. The pair were set to contest fourth place as the only two-stoppers in the leading group.
The three retirements within the top six allowed Haas’s Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen to finish fourth and fifth. It is the team’s best result and its 50th F1 race. The result is also Grosjean’s first top 10 of 2018.
Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez finished sixth and seventh for Force India. The two exchanged positions in the closing stages, with Ocon allowing Perez passed in order to give the Mexican a chance to catch Magnussen. The pair swapped positions again when Perez failed to pass the Haas.
Fernando Alonso climbed from a pitlane start to finish in eighth. He passed the Sauber of Charles Leclerc in the closing laps.
Leclerc secured a fifth points finish in six races, finishing in ninth ahead of team-mate Marcus Ericsson in 10th. The two swapped positions, using the same tactic as Force India, in the final laps in an attempt to elevate Ericsson ahead of Alonso.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg retired with a power unit failure. Carlos Sainz Jr suffered a slow pitstop and ended up in 12th.
Comments.
Loading comments…