POST RACE REACTION BLOG
Almost three and a half months after the teams arrived in Melbourne for what should have been the first event of 2020 the season finally got under way on Sunday at the RedBull Ring in Austria. And what a race we were treated to! Action all the way, safety cars to cause some disruption, plenty of overtaking and then some controversy to.
Its difficult to know where to start with a race that should have seen an easy 1-2 finish for Mercedes. Any thoughts Mercedes had of an easy afternoon vanished when both cars were starting to suffer gearbox issues as a result of running over Austria’s famous car breaking curbs. Valterri and Lewis both had radio calls from the pits telling them to avoid the curbs, with Lewis being told the situation was critical. This was a situation that clearly needed some careful managment to reach the end of the race.
If that wasn’t enough to raise temperatures in the Mercedes pit a late safety car to clear Raikkionen’s three wheeled machine eroded their advantage (not for the first time in the race it must be said, Bottas was having to get used to getting a jump on the field at the restarts) and allowed some behind to pit for fresh soft tyres. Once the race was green again those who had stopped were able to put Lewis under some real pressure on their softer rubber and when Albon, the sole RedBull left after Verstappen’s early demise came upon Hamilton he made a bold move around the outside of turn 4 and the RedBull and Mercedses made contact, spinning Albon into the gravel. This was the cause of the controversy, Hamilton was given investigated and given a five second penalty by the stewards for the incident. Questions after the race were did Lewis deserve the penalty, who’s falut was it, could Albon have been more patient, was five seconds a big enough penalty?
My opinion is that yes Albon could have been patient and tried to get Lewis with DRS but he is a racer and saw his chance to get after Bottas for the lead and didn’t want to waste too much time getting by Lewis. It was a bold, brave move and he shouldn’t be criticized in my view for making it. Lewis was to blame for the contact as Albon gave him as much space as he could and the RedBull was ahead coming out of the corner, so therefore the penalty for Lewis was justified. It wasn’t a deliberate move to take Albon off the track, Lewis doesn’t race like that and has often been called one of the cleanest drivers on the grid so there was no malice there but it was a misjudgment which sent Albon to the back of the pack.
Would Albon have passed Bottas if the Hamilton move had been successful? He certainly would have had a great chance to on his fresh rubber. In the end however he retired from the race with electrical issues so it may not have been the fairy tale finish that RedBull hoped for anyway. It was though a good drive from Albon and while he is rightly disappointed with the outcome he showed his skill and the team will need him to be chasing results like that when Max is not there in the race.
This brings is onto another talking point and a strategy call during qualifying that we never got to see play out. The RedBull team didn’t have the pace of the Mercedes all weekend and they knew that their only real chance of challenging them was to go a different way on race strategy, so Max used the medium tyres to get through into Q3 thereby ensuring he would start the race on more durable rubber and go longer than the Mercs in the first stint of the race. He kept in touch with then in the early laps but then had an electrical issue and retired from the race early on. It was a big blow to him and RedBull as they would come away from the event with no points after Albon’s late retirement. But it also robbed us of a chance to see if Max could have challenged for victory on his contrary strategy.
The unusually high number of retirements was a bit of a surprise and it wasn’t just RedBull that had mechanical issues. It almost reminded you of a race from the nineties with so many people falling by the wayside. Only eleven cars finished the race and the probable cause if this was the fact it was the first race, the aforementioned car breaking curbs at this track and also the fact that the cars had not run properly since late February. I would expect the race this coming weekend to see less reliabilty issues as teams have now got some running under their belts and had an opportunity over the week to pinpoint area’s of weakness. I think we can also expect to see drivers give the curbs a little more respect than last weekend.
It is interesting to read as I have just done however that Mercedes say their gearbox issues are a bigger problem and are connected to the internal layout of their gearbox, they say they had problems with it during practice as well so this could be an on-going issue for them and may have an impact on the championship. Lets watch this space on that one.
After Hamilton’s penalty LeClerc and Norris were able to climb onto the podium in second and third respectively and both were great results for their teams and achieved through some incredible driving. LecLerc was fast when he needed to be, decisive when overtaking and pulled off the move of the race to overtake Perez into turn three, all in all it was a great drive and a great result that looked very unlikely after qualifying when the Ferrari’s qualified seventh and eleventh. They were not fast all weekend ands will be trying to fast tracking some updated for this weekends race to try and claw back some performance, but LeClerc was measured in his approach and took his chances. Second was a dream result for him really. The same could not be said for his team mate however who didn’t make it into Q3 and had a silly clumsy spin while trying to overtake Carlos Sainz into T3 at half distance. While not wanting to beay up on Vettel it looked like more of the same as last year from him. Not particularly quick and silly errors costing him time. He scored a solitary point for finishing tenth but it was not a good performance from him.
LeClerc’s fellow podium finisher Lando Norris though was impressive all weekend, indeed as were his team. Pace looked good, apart from in the early laps when they appeared to drop back a little but Lando lining up third on the grid ( one place higher than his fourth place in qauli after Lewis was demoted five places after a yellow flag incident) was the highest a McLaren had qualified since Button started third a few years ago. And like LeCerc he also had the pace at the right time and was good in wheel to wheel battle. His move on Perez wasn’t as clean as LeClerc’s on Sainz but Perez kept turning in on him and almost causes a collision. And then in the late laps he was very fast, clinched fastest lap on the last lap and getting third place by a tenth of a second after Hamilton’s five second penalty had been allowed for. A great result for him and the team, a podium this early is what the team needed to show that further progress had been made. I also believe that Norris will go from strength to strength after this aswell. With Sainz coming home fifth it was a good solid haul of points for the Woking based team.
Racing Point started the season with a sixth place with Perez but that could have been more, potentially a podium if they had taken on new tyres during the last safety car period. A retirement for Stroll was disappointing as he would suerly have gained a handful of points as well but it was still a promising start for the team as they showed that they had the pace to fight with the McLarens all weekend. I predicted an early top three finish for that team and I still believe that they have a top result coming their way in the early races.
Gasly and Apha Tauri started off with a good seventh pace finish which was good for them and Alfa Romeo scored points with Giovanazzi. Renault took three points with Ocon in eigth but the Frenchman didn’t seem to have the pace of Ricciardo and will need to improve in future races. I’m sure he will as he is a class driver and hasn’t raced since 2018 since there is maybe a bit of race rust there. The other Renault in Ricciardo’s hands appeared to have good pace but unfortunately retired and missed out on a certain points finish.
The other team Williams were as expected at the back but there were encouraging signs as Russel was nit that far away from getting into Q2 and is another driver who would certianly have taken points if he had finished. He was well ahead of team mate Latifi who was eleventh and last and so one or two points were not out of the question. As a Williams fan it was good to see some improvement and promise from them.
That is them race then but there were other talking points from the weekend. For instance we learned from Vettel that he never received a contract offer from Ferrari and instead had a phone call from Mattia Binotto telling him that his services will not be required next year. To be perfectly honest this isnt a suprise, Vettel mistakes have been costly over the last year or two and there are no signs that he his getting back to his best. Ferrari are trying to rebuild and I believe that doing that without Sebastian will be best. I mean that with disrespect to Vettel, he is still a quality driver but clearly not at his best. It remains to be seen where he will end up next year.
The other clarification we had over the weekend was regarding Mercedes DAS system. The device as protested by RedBull on Friday and declared legal on Saturday so we now all know that it is legal. I am glad that it has been deemed to be clear as it clears the whole situation up and personally I think it is an ingenuous invention.
That covers most things I think from Austria. It was exciting and eventful and we cant ask for more than that for the first event of the season. Worth the wait it definitely was and I hope that this weekends race, which will be called the Styrian Grand Prix after the region of Austria in which the RedBull Ring is situated, will be just as eventful.
My F1 talk 