Spielberg Recap

A full recap of the Austrian Grand Prix, from the biggest battles and strategic calls to the moments that shaped the race. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Box up, boxing up, box, box, box. Hey everyone, welcome to Box Box Box. As Scott would say, your friendly neighborhood F1 forecast. You just got Mohan today. I'm flying Solop because Scott and I couldn't get our schedules lined up this week. So unfortunately, you're stuck with me to recap the Austrian Grand Prix this past weekend. But honestly, we've actually got a lot more to uh to talk about. Starting with a slightly controversial poll position. And then George moving on to soaking up a huge amount of pressure to deliver a win for Mercedes. Max's charge through the field, Kimi very nearly snatching victory at the end. Ferrari turning a front row challenge into a fairly painful Sunday by their standards. And overall a race where actually the tie temperature did play a large part in the final result. So let's get straight into it. We have to start with qualifying because George Russell's poll immediately gave us something to argue about and was actually quite argued about for quite a few days after the race as well. As mentioned in a qualifying update in the weekend, Max O'Steppen crashed at uh very fast turn nine. Uh, and Russell came through under a single wave yellow. Um, there is a lot of debate as to why that was a single wave yellow and why it shouldn't have gone straight to a double yellow. But he Russell drove to the conditions and to the rules at the time, and as a result, he lifted for about 100 meters as he was required to do. That led to him losing about a tenth and a half on that lap. Uh, and it still allowed him to put in a 1 minute 6.113, more than two tenths quicker than Charles LeClerc. So, under a single lay law, Russell was still allowed to finish that lap as long as he clearly slowed down and was ready to change direction if he needed to. So, from Russell's point of view, there wasn't really much controversy. He has obviously argued that um he followed the rules and and and credit to him that he actually exploited those rules as well and and took full advantage of what they actually did. The real question that comes out of this is whether race control should have actually shown WLOs in the first place. Given the nature of the crash, the sign how severe a crash it actually was, uh, instead of race control staying uh waiting out another 22 seconds, as it turned out, before the it was converted to a double. So, and and after the crash, there were there were no marshals immediately around the car, and there was a decent amount of runoff. Um, so which kind of points to their hesitation, race controls hesitation. Uh but if you can look at it from a safety point of view, that is quite a significant argument to be had, and particularly a car crashing at what's one of the quickest corners on the circuit. And uh unfortunately, um, for a driver like Antonelli, who I think is inexperienced to some extent, and perhaps not clear communication from his team engineer, he assumed it was a double yellow and backed out of his lap. And as a result, actually ended up fourth. So, whereas Russell actually read the signal correctly, and credit to him to reacting uh in the microsecond that he would have had to react. Uh, and as a result, he actually kept his la his lap alive and took pole position. So, I personally don't think he did anything at wrong, anything wrong at all. If there's any criticism, I think all of that needs to go towards race control and they are delaying reacting. And we hope that they have learned from this uh situation. If this if this situation presents itself uh again, uh that they react a lot quicker to this. So then we move on to the race itself. Once the race actually started, Russell was pretty faultless. He got away very cleanly from the start. Both Ferraris were behind him into the opening corners. By lap 15, he was more than five seconds clear. And that was actually quite important because of Mercedes' overall control of the strategy that actually allowed them to control the race. They could basically stop when it suited them, and they didn't actually have to react to or panic to uh strategy from Ferrari or Red Bull. Uh Max did bring that gap down to 1.2 seconds in the middle stint, uh, but Russell never really looked rattled, even though he was fading uh in the latter stages of each of his stints. And he also didn't try to overdrive the car. So uh he sort of answered it a single lap at a time and kept his nerve when when the pressure actually built. Obviously, the pole position helped, and having clean air in front of him by getting a clear getaway at the start obviously helped as well. And uh I also feel that Red Bull missed a trick here because they set kept Max out for an additional five or six laps when Russell pitted, when they probably should have reacted to Mercedes and actually pitted at the same time. And that five or six laps extra did show off at the end where Max Tiery didn't have the pace to catch George, even though George was actually fading in those latter stages of that of that last stint. So Red Bull as a team probably feel that from a strategy point of view they got that particular call wrong and they should have reacted more promptly to what Mercedes-Bence uh did. So, having said all that, this wasn't actually a comfortable cruise for Russell to the finish. He it was just a case of how he actually balanced his tires, particularly in very hot conditions, uh, how he managed the deployment of his battery, uh, and having a four-time world champion breathing down his neck as well. So I think he handled that very well. And I think from a from a championship point of view, he sort of was able to put another stamp to say, no, I'm still here, because a lot of the talk has actually been about Antonelli coming into this and the fact that how race by race Kimmy is slowly pulling away from George and and now slowly increasing that gap. This was this was a statement win for Russell to actually say, no, I'm still in the fight, and given the right conditions and um the the right track, I guess at the end of the day, I'm I'm still in the fight in all of this. So that was good to see, particularly from a championship point of view. That then brings us to Red Bull and to Verstappen itself. His drive from uh fifth position to second uh was probably actually the clearest sign yet that Red Bull's upgrade was has genuinely moved that car forward. They didn't actually make tiny changes, there were quite significant changes to the car that they brought to this circuit. There were changes to the floor, to the rear suspension, to the rear corner, the wing, the exhaust, uh the inlets of the side pods, and the engine cover itself. So they arrived with a fairly serious package to this race, and it actually showed in the final result. It was happened going from fifth to second, and Hajah in the second car climbing from eighth to sixth. Um, and we've talked about how important that second result is for Red Bull and the fact that up to in previous years, Max has been the only one delivering points uh and also the only one showing genuine pace. So it was shown the fact that both drivers actually were able to show an improvement. And in the discussion with Haja, actually, he uh genuinely felt that he had the second fastest car in the race overall, so which was a reasonable comment, I think, from his part. Uh but Verstappen's progress is actually very impressive. He went past Antonelli and Leclerc together at turn four, and that was a a masterclass of a of an overtake to actually watch. Um, the other positive, I guess, was in very hot conditions how he managed his tires. And particularly where other cars were overheating their tires, uh, he could actually stay very competitive deep into a particular stint. Having said that, there are still a lot of reasons not to declare Red Bull fully back yet. Australia is obviously, as we know, is a short lap. There are a lot of big breaking zones and a lot of demand on the on the traction of the car. And this may have actually hidden some of the weaknesses that still exist within the Red Bull car. But and then Max himself mentioned there was an issue with the rear axle later in the race. And as mentioned before, Red Bull's decision to extend his last stint did play a significant part in that final result. So going into Silverstone, I think Silverstone actually will present a very different test for this car and probably actually show that the result in Australia wasn't uh wasn't a fluke that was specific to the Austrian track. And it it more showed that this is actually the first proper evidence that Red Bull have kind of rejoined that leading group uh rather than making a slow car slightly less slower as such. So uh we will wait to see what how this translates or whether they can continue that momentum in Silverstone. We certainly have to talk about uh the Hamilton versus Verstappen battle, and that was fantastic to see from a racing fans point of view. Hamilton took second place uh over his teammate in the opening lap, uh, and Max very quickly moved third. And then from then, the two of them did what they have done so many times before. They raced hard, they were thinking several corners ahead, and they used every centimeter of track to try and get away from each other. At turn six, uh Verstappen tried to carry speed from the outside. Hamilton held his line but gave him just enough room to make that overtake. Uh, Verstappen actually was obviously straight back on the radio asking for a penalty. The stewards did actually investigate it and decided there was nothing to be answered there. And Lewis's argument was pretty simple. He said Max was behind him at the apex, so he couldn't expect that Lewis was going to disappear and leave him the full outside lane. So it was fair, racing, uh aggressive, but definitely not reckless on anyone's part. Uh and then after the first pit stops, they did it all over again. Verstappen got past Hamilton on a lap 22. Hamilton fought back and retook that position. And then Max Attack again and finally made that move stick. That whole sequence actually told us quite a lot about both the cars. Where Ferrari seemed to have enough initial pace and enough straight-line resistance for Lewis to be able to defend and to counterattack. But uh Red Bull actually seemed to have better sustained or long race space. And I think Max looked after his tires more effectively than Lewis did. And once Max actually completed that final overtake move, he just could keep pushing and he just pulled away. And at that point, Hamilton's tires were starting to overheat, and Ferrari had no choice but to pull him into a three-stop strategy as such. Neither driver went too far, and they gave each other just enough room to do what they needed to do. And it was it was fantastic to see, it was purely hard racing. And between two drivers who know exactly where the limit is, compared to going back, you know, four or five years ago. And even if they occasionally disagree about whose side of the limit each of them sits, it it it it all paid towards fantastic racing. And it actually served to establish Max as a main threat for Russell and the and the Mercedes-Benz cars, actually. So over and above Ferrari as a threat. And perhaps in this instance and this once one situation, he may have leapfrogged the Ferrari cars as a result of it. Uh and we will wait to see whether that trend continues in Silverstone. Then we have to talk about Antonelli's race. His third place is one of those results that can be considered both very impressive but also very frustrating at the start. His opening laps uh weren't great. And I believe he carried a certain level of anger, according to him, that he he had from uh qualifying into those opening laps. And I think he tried to win that race from the opening lap onwards rather than being patient about it. And as a result, did run off a couple of times in the in that opening stint, and it did and it did have an issue for him as a result of it. And he Mercedes did uh identify that there was a a split issue with one of his brakes and and made the car a little bit difficult to control. But I think a large part of this also was that Antonelli probably is inexperienced in this time. He wasn't patient enough to try and build a race and and was carrying an emotion into into those into those laps rather than being patient. So Mercedes actually extended his opening stint, and I think the timing probably was not particularly good for him. And particularly given that he stopped on lap 24, and almost immediately afterwards the virtual safety car came out for uh Carlos Sainz stopping on track. Uh, and as a result, he ended up missing the cheaper pit stop by a few seconds and had to rejoin in fifth position. So once the behavior of his brakes improved and his pace started to come alive, he overtook Leclerc and was able to run a much longer second stint and was able to use his fresher stars pretty well at the end, actually quite brilliantly at the end, in fact. So that's why I think overall I'll call this a fairly strong championship drive. He had a difficult car, he made mistakes, uh, he got unlucky with the pit stop timing, but he still came away with the podium, which is still very impressive. And that's how he's actually still protected the lead in the in the championship. I think he's ahead of Russell by about 40 points at the moment. But I think overall he also missed. It is also a missed opportunity on his part and the team's part, and that he could have easily taken away those two aspects and he could have easily been fighting for the win, and particularly given that he ended up very close to Verstappen, just as the race ended. And so they will hopefully Mercedes and Antonel himself will take those lessons away and have a look at it just prior to coming back into Silverstone. So, where did that leave Ferrari over overall? So they turned second and third on the grid into fifth and eighth, which it was it was basically it wasn't a result of one thing going wrong. It was they seemed to be chasing a race where they actually didn't seem to have the pace to win. As mentioned before, Hamilton passed his teammate at the start. Uh, and initially he looked like he could actually stay with Russell, but the team actually had not really conf completed uh enough long, long run work on Friday to understand what the best strategy actually wants. If you turn back the clock to the the previous race where they seem to have got their time management strategy spot on and were very aggressive with it, and that actually translated to Lewis being able to lead and to win that race. It was a very different set of strategy that actually was executed here. Um and I think an interview with Fred Vasseur later after the race that he admitted that they probably spent too much time focusing on Mercedes. Uh, and they had pushed too hard in the opening laps and reacted probably too aggressively with the strategy. And instead of actually accepting that where the car really was and managing the race from there, they really tried to force the issue. And that I think affected them come the end of the race. And as early as lap 13, Hamilton actually had had made his third stop. So he recovered to fifth, but he was more than 26 seconds behind Russell, and that is a significant gap compared to the previous race's result. Charles Leclerc's race was a lot rougher, and I actually have to feel for Charles at the moment, and he seems to be driving at the moment as someone who is lacking a lot of confidence. And this is, I think, in a similar situation to our conversation about Russell a few weeks ago, that is given the results that his teammate is delivering, perhaps that is playing on into his mindset, and it is starting to show in the club's results as such. So in this race, he lost places to both Antonelli and Piastri. He picked up a certain amount of front wing damage in his fight with Piastri and then continued to slide backwards. So his rear tires were overheating and he couldn't really defend against Haji and Norris. And so for him, this actually is a fairly frustrating conversion of starting second and only finishing fifth. So this overall, I think from Ferrari from a team point of view, I don't think it was it's purely down to bad strategy or a bad setup. I think this is overall a weekend where Ferrari would consider that they actually overreached and the race and the conditions on the day punish them for every weakness that the qualifying results had actually managed to hide up to that point. So hopefully they are able to turn this around in Silverstone and produce a better result overall. Then we move on to McLaren. They had what we would consider a fairly mixed day overall. Piastri's fourth place was probably close to what they could have extracted as that maximum for that car on the day. He gained ground on his teammate, but he did get caught up with Vustappen at the start, but then sort of relaxed to managing his ties fairly sensibly and made a very committed move on Charles Leclerc. So there was a little bit of contact there. But he was able to pull away from Hamilton late in the race and finished ahead of both Ferraris. So this, I think, operationally is a was a very good result for them. But the gap to the winner is still 22 seconds, which is quite a significant gap. Whereas his teammate Norris's seventh place was a lot less convincing. He lost a lot of track position on the opening lap and stayed out longer without having the pace to make that sort of the offset actually work. And he was also affected by the pit stop sequence that existed. So they didn't actually bring, as a team, didn't bring any major upgrades to this track, uh, where several of their rivals did. And uh Stella may admitted in an interview after the race that they are still quite a few tenths away from the front of the pack. The encouraging part for them was that the car looked, was able to look after its rear tires better than Ferrari did in the heat. And that actually translated, I think, to Oscar's result in the end. So they sort of you can sort of consider them as a lead sort of a second group. Um they they they can actually lead as a second group if they're able to get their execution uh done properly over a weekend. Uh but Norris also showed that the other side of the car, that the car still doesn't have enough of a performance margin to be able to recover if they were to drop back on the first lap again, for instance. So uh the we will see what how this translates into uh the race in uh in Silverstone uh next week and what they're able to bring back. Uh next we actually need to talk about racing bulls, and I think they put together what will be considered a very strong team result. They uh both Lawson and Lindblad qualified ninth and tenth, and that's how they finished. Uh and this actually has given them a third consecutive double points result, and which is very impressive given given previous uh years. But it wasn't uh completely straightforward either. At one point, Liam actually thought his car was on fire, and he repeatedly mentioned that on the radio, but that turned out to be uh extremely high break temperatures given the conditions that were existing at the start. And this obviously wouldn't have been exactly relaxing for him as the person sitting in the car. Uh he briefly lost a place to Lindblad after a misunderstanding between the two drivers, and then used the undercut at the second round of stops to get the ninth place black. Lindblad seemed to be struggling uh with some of the low speed braking, and he didn't feel particularly comfortable on the hard tires, but he still kept up with uh Bortoletto and sort of still kept Bortoletta out of the points as a result of how he finished. So, as a team, they have actually been showing quite good qualifying pace for quite a while now. Now the difference for them is how they actually are able to try and convert that into the result on a Sunday. So the upgrades in Austria seem to have improved their long-run pace, and both drivers are able to show that they have got able, they manage the tires well enough to still finish in the midfield. They finished a lap down, yes, and it was only three points, but we're not talking about a threat to the lead to the leading teams. They are never expected to fight up there. They want to be leading the midfield teams, and I think that's where they have put themselves in a very strong um position to even to be bold enough to say that they are currently the benchmark in the midfield. And let's see how this goes forward for them. Then on the flip side, we Have Cadillac, who probably had the most worrying weekend of anyone on the circuit, because both cars were retired with what looked like looked to be some uh problem with the brake cooling. This was supposed to be a really important event for the team because they brought uh the biggest upgrade package so far of the season to this track. They revised the side points, side pods, the bodywork, uh the components of the floor, uh, and overall with the intent that they could potentially use those upgrades to try and close the gap with the rest of the cars in the midfield. Instead, what happened was Sports was only out for a couple of laps when his brakes overheated and the car came back into the pits with signs of being fire on fire. And then Perez seemed to suffer the same basic problem a few laps later. It was their first double retirement, and it meant that they basically got any barely got any useful data out of that race or any useful information from those new parts that they installed over that weekend. So I think Perez, in the interviews after we afterwards, seemed to feel that they had uh the race space over and above the Williams cars. Um, but unfortunately, it's a weekend where they didn't have enough data or didn't have enough time on track to certify that or have data that they could actually take into the next race. Let's see how that translates in in Silverstone. Then we have to talk about Williams, and they actually overall had a weekend to forget. Uh, and I don't think they can simply write this off as a hot weather problem. The temperature certainly made the tire degradation worse, but discussions with Albon seemed that the he seemed to feel that the car genuinely lacked pace through the medium and high speed corners. Uh, both cars didn't get past Q1 in qualifying, and they started at 17 and 18th respectively. Uh, Science at 17th and Albon at 18th respectively. And neither of them from that point onwards looked like a threat to the any of the teams challenging for points. So Science mentioned the fact that the setup changes made the car a little bit easier to drive. Uh, but then the power unit uh and the electric, or particularly the electrical system, actually suddenly shut down on the main street. Uh, and his retirement actually caused the virtual safety car to come out. Alburn continued on, but was able to only improve it by one position and finish at 17th, uh, two laps down. And he was fighting degradation through the whole race. And I think hit a bollard at one point, if I remember correctly, which also then triggered another brief uh uh VSC. This uh a bigger concern is that the the result in Austria comes after another difficult weekend that they had in Barcelona in the previous race. And it starts to look less like one bad circuit, more than um a pattern that emerges on tracks where they need to manage the tyres a lot better, the performance of the tires a lot better. And they seem to be executing good pit stops and they operationally seem to be executing well. And they are expecting, I think, a small upgrade to be brought into Silverstone. But they need to be there needs to be a lot more than the theory behind these upgrades, basically. They need the, as I mentioned before, a team like Red Bull is is going leaps and heads above them. And it is actually it is still quite troubling as to the fact that they are struggling to fight in that midfield. And even a team like Alpine and Hass is seems to be uh progressing ahead of them and uh is is is still presenting any lot of issues and and with very few answers to those issues race by race. Then we definitely have to talk about uh the fate of Aston Martin, and they were certainly even further away from Williams. Alonso qualified 21st and finished 18th, three laps down from Russell. Uh he compounded by the fact that he picked up a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. And this was obviously, although not a big difference between a good result and a bad result. Lance was able to race his teammate for a while, and he mentioned the fact that the second still felt somewhat comfortable. But that's the problem. They're basically racing each other at the back of the pack. And the team had already set expectations by going into the weekend saying that they wouldn't be competitive with the cars in front of them. Uh so for a team that actually has the amount of facilities, has the amount of money, and and has the level of ambition that they actually want to be, this is uh would be a definitely a very uncomfortable position for them to be in. And it's it's frustrating from a from a fan's point of view as well, given the expectations that this team held and obviously the appointment of Newey into that team, the partnership with Honda, uh, none of that seems to have delivered results uh that that would be considered useful. And similar to Williams, actually, there are a lot of a lot more questions than answers coming out of their results. So and it basically says that there is a more fundamental issue with this team, that simple setup changes are no longer going to be enough. The car actually needs seems to need proper new parts. And it'll be interesting to see whether Abishno, technically Silverstone is a home race for them. Uh, and the crowd support isn't going to solve the problems that they have. So whether if they bring any more upgrades to this circuit, whether they can genuinely challenge the midfield. And that I have my doubts at this stage, uh, but I await to be surprised, come come Silverstone. Uh if and I'm looking at this in general terms, uh, a huge part of all the stories in this particular race was the heat. And this weekend was officially declared a heat hazard, uh, particularly sort of no with the and that and the and the threshold for that is that uh if the ambient temperature is above 30 degrees, particularly that is definitely declared as a heat hazard. And I think the track temperature was pushing towards 50. Uh, and rarely actually bought the three softest compounds that that they have in their in their in their garage, so C3 to C5. And the degradation on this track is mainly thermal, and the rough surface actually keeps generating the temperature. And if you look at the teams, Mercedes and Max particularly from Red Bull seem to handle that better than anyone, and that then translated into their podium as well. And they seem to actually be able to run stints of more than 20 laps without the pace falling off a cliff. And Antonelli himself actually was extremely fast on those fresh tires late in the race. So, and if not for his issues at the start of the race and also on the unfortunate timing of the VSC, he could have actually been challenging for a win. So I think they managed that that those conditions a lot better than the other teams. Uh Ferrari seemed to push too hard early, too early, and overheated the rear tires. And the timing of uh obviously the virtual safety car did affect quite quite a few cars. And I and having said that, I don't actually say tire management is more important than speed, but tire management was actually a direct translation to speed as such. So this played a significant issue, significant uh factor in the final result that actually played out. So, what does that actually mean for the overall championship as such? So uh did did it actually tighten the championship? I think it did a little bit, but it's more from a psychological point of view than a mathematical point of view, I think. Uh Antonelli is still leading the championship uh by 171 points and he's 40 points ahead of his teammate. Uh Hamilton is now third on 125. Uh, and Russell has reduced his deficit to 40 points to Antonelli's result of this race, which is meaningful. But Antonelli is still in is still up there, he's still up in the fight and be able to present this. But as I mentioned at the start of this uh discussion, this is actually a reassertion from Russell, the fact that he is still in the fight. And perhaps this actually changes his mentality as well moving into going into Silverstone. Uh, particularly the fact that he was able to uh uh deliver a pole position and he was able to lead from pole position to the end and a very controlled race from his part. So um I think the result for Hamilton was a lot more damaging for him, uh, for Hammer for Lewis. And he's dropped from second to third in the standings, and now is a 46-point gap between him and Antonelli. Mercedes as a team lead the constructors' championship by a huge margin. They're uh 302 points to so by 98 points ahead of Ferrari or 204. And they have seemed to have the overall the strongest platform as a team. So this, I must admit, it did stop up to that point, but still may have seemed like somewhat of a procession. I think this this race actually put a stop to that feeling and brought Russell back into that conversation as the most immediate challenger to to Antonelli. But also showed the fact that Kimi doesn't need to win every weekend to stay at the front. If he keeps collecting podiums and keeps maintaining that gap, uh he is going to be that that gap is going to be very hard to erase and he's a genuine contender for drivers' championship. And what this actually was do we actually consider this to be a really close race? I think, I think, I think overall, yeah, perhaps for if you look at the season overall, this is probably one of the closest, closest races at the front, definitely. Russell won by 1.6 seconds, and and and Verstappen was closing that gap. And if not for uh an unfortunate strategy from Red Bull in terms of keeping Verstappen out a bit longer in that last stint before they changed his tires instead of following Mercedes, it could have been a very different result. Uh and Antonelli was also closing that gap uh very uh very quickly in the end. Uh and again, uh a virtual safety car and uh impatience on his part at the start of the race cost him at the very end. So uh let's hope that he's able to learn from that. Behind the podium, it was a very different race. I think he has to finish nearly 22 seconds behind uh the race uh behind Russell. Hamilton was uh more than 26 seconds, uh, and Hajab was a close to 30 seconds behind. So we effectively had two races happening. Uh we had Russell, Verstappen, and Antonelli at the front fighting for the wind. Uh, and then McLaren, Ferrari, and Hajjar fighting over that fourth, fourth through to eighth position, basically. So I think this calling this a close race is extremely fair. Um, and particularly when we're talking about the battle at the front. So that's the story of the Austrian Grand Prix. Thanks for listening to this slightly different uh one-man edition of the podcast. Uh, Scott should be back with me hopefully the next time, uh schedules permitting. And just a quick point out to our socials uh on Boxboxbox at Boxboxbox AUS. We are on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok. Um, we also have a website at boxboxbox.net.au. Please like, subscribe, share, send your comments and your feedback and also any any aspects that you wish to argue with us or disagree with us, please let us know. And hopefully Scott is back with us next time. And until then, take care, and I will be speaking to you again soon for to preview the simple stone device. Thank you.