[WARNING/DISCLAIMER : This Is A Long Article Covering The Whole Weekend]
After the longest gap ever [7months to be precise], Formula 1, 2020 season finally officially kicked off last weekend in Austria and in style.
If you are holed up in your basement, or generally living under a rock, there is a certain COVID 19 situation around the world which has canceled almost all sports and public activity for the past half a year, so get out of the basement or don't, but Formula One is back!
And about that 7 month wait? Well, let's just say the Austrian GP was well worth it!
Free Practice 1 on Friday kicked off with all the teams and drivers getting into the grind of things after a long gap and even the drops of rain over the RedBull Ring could not dampen the practice runs, Mercedes were seen using their ingenious DAS [ Dual-Axis Steering System] on their all-new Black Livery and the team continued to show their dominance with their star drive Lewis Hamilton taking the top spot on the timing sheet just ahead of teammate Bottas, both on the soft compounds. RedBull's Max Verstappen had an eventful day out and finished his practice session in third, just 0.013s ahead of McLaren Racing's outgoing Carlos Sainz.
The Pink Mercedes, sorry Racing Point, showed some tremendous pace with their Mexican driver Sergio Perez rounding up the top five in FP1.
Free Practice 2 was another show of Mercedes dominance, with Lewis Hamilton and Bottas ending the session 1-2 with the Pink Mercedes of Sergio Perez 0.641s behind followed closely by the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. The Renault of Daniel Ricciardo wrapped up the top 5 in FP2. RedBull officially lodged a protest against Mercedes's DAS post FP2.
Free Practice 3 on Saturday opened with FIA ruling the DAS on Mercedes legal by the FIA and Mercedes continued their show of dominance by ending the session 1-2 again, followed by Max and Perez. The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc closed the top five slots 0.573s adrift.
Qualifying 1 was a stunner, both the Alfa Romeo's got knocked out in Q1 with the William's of George Russell ending ahead of the leading fastest Alfa of Antonio Giovinazzi. William's also showed the progress they have made this year, with Russell missing out on Q2 by just 0.072s, that's a tremendous leap from last year where he was 1.451s off from making Q2. Mercedes dominated as usual with RedBull joining in the fun.
Qualifying 2 was one to forget for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel fans. Over the weekend, The Ferrari already showed signs of problems with pace and downforce, and with Seb knocked out in Q2, and Charles just about making to Q1 it forced the Ferrari team to fight a midfield battle in the race. The year looks bleak for Ferrari and its Tifosi while Mercedes continued to show their dominance.
Qualifying 3 was a dull start but as the session started to get into the business end Bottas dropped his car into the gravel to mow some grass on his final lap which brought out the yellow flags, now all drivers slowed down, except one Lewis Hamilton, who raced past the spot and incurred a 3 place grid penalty later which got Max, Norris, and Albon up a spot and Lewis ended up 5th on the starting grid, just one spot ahead of the Pink Mercedes of Sergio Perez. Let's get on to the race!
RACE DAY!
Finally, a Sunday to look forward to, and if you skipped through here, good on you!
It was lights out, and away we go as per usual, and hearing these golden words made the hair on the back of my neck tingle. Norris was feisty in his McLaren and was fighting wheel to wheel with the RedBull of Max through the first few corners. Seb in his Ferrari meanwhile swapped positions with former RedBull teammate Daniel Ricciardo to take the last of the points. 3 laps down, Albon and Lewis overtook the McLaren of Norris and on lap 9 Lewis overtook Albon to make it into the last of the podium positions. Everything was looking calm and uneventful until lap 11. Max Verstappen lost power coming out of turn one, complaining of an issue with his settings which was making his car go into anti-stall, he limped his car back into the pits and had to retire from the race.
A few laps later, Daniel Ricciardo had a puff of smoke out the back of his Renault and had to retire his car for loss of power due to overheating. The Austrian heat was too much for the Renault to handle apparently. On lap 21, the Pink Mercedes of Lance Stroll retired after complaints of loss of power. Roman Grosjean later spun onto the gravel, got into the pits and changed tyres, becoming the first one to change tyres in the race. His teammate however suffered a brake failure at the same turn and out came the safety car for the first time in the race and into the pits came all the cars except Roman's Hass who pitted earlier.
That's 4 drivers out of the race, and as the safety car went in and racing restarted, the outgoing Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel attempted a rather ballsy overtake on Sainz, who is going to replace him at Ferrari next season, made contact and continued in his tradition of facing the wrong direction during the race, and gave everyone a meme fest to enjoy while he dropped all the way down to second-last place.
The Hass drivers, which are used to competing with each other, had to up his game, so Grosjean too had his brakes fail on him, but unlike his teammate who brought out the safety car, Grosjean could limp his car back to the pits safely, winning the competition between the two, but Geroge Russel had to bring the second safety car out. After losing fuel pressure Russel parked his car out on the side of the track and out came the second safety car, in the meanwhile, we heard someone over the radio - 'Valtteri it's James' but somehow this time it was not to let Lewis pass but to avoid the kerbs as the vibrations were damaging the sensors in the Mercedes gearbox, and the message was conveyed to both cars, by one James. Some changed to fresher rubber.
The safety car period ended on lap 54 and Albon went right on attack mode behind Perez and just as he Albon completed his move on Perez and into the podium positions, Kimi in his shoe box of a car somehow had a front right wheel detached from the car, it was like the wheel also did not want to be a part of the Alfa Romeo, and out came the third safety car as Kimi parked the car on the pit straight. Perez meanwhile took his place ahead of Albon, but during the safety car, Albon was instructed by his team to overtake Perez as he was ahead of the Pink Mercedes when the yellow started flashing on his dash.
That's 7 cars out of the race, and as the race restarted, Albon was on the attack of his nemesis who denied him his first podium last season, Lewis Hamilton. Albon sized up a move on the Mercedes outside of turn 4, and reminiscent of last time the two made contact and Albon once again at the losing end of spun out and dropped to last place. Hamilton meanwhile incurred a 5-second penalty. The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc showed some grit, and began an attack in the closing laps, overtaking Norris to get into the third place on track and with Hamilton's 5-second penalty, meant he would end up in 2nd. Perez meanwhile picked up a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane and Albon retired with an electric failure on lap 68.
That's 8 cars out of the race and Norris passed Perez with some contact between the two to take P4, with a 5-second penalty on Hamilton, Norris had a shot at being on the podium on his first e-sport off-season. On the penultimate lap, Kvyat in his Alpha Tauri suffered a left-rear puncture leading to his retirement from the race. Sainz meanwhile passed Perez for fifth place and we saw Lando Norris come of age in his final lap, he hit purples sectors to get within 5 seconds of Lewis, and the fastest lap of the race, ending his race 4th on track but 3rd overall and his first-ever Formula One podium finish.
Valtteri Bottas won the race from pole and led every lap of the race. Charles had luck on his side and claimed second starting from P7 on the grid, Lando drove a sensational race and secured his first ever real Formula 1 podium finish in what is his second season in Formula One. The celebrations were a bit weird due to social distancing norms, but there was champagne sprays nevertheless.
The Motologist Opinion
The race was well worth the wait, it had all the elements for a perfect race, some great drama great wheel to wheel racing and I rank it currently the best of this season.
What do you guys' think of the race? Leave a comment below on how you felt about it.
Thank you for reading this obscenely long article and have a great day!
Till next week then, to another hopefully exciting Austrian GP weekend.
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Pictures credit and copyright: AFP & GETTY
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