“Technically correct, the best kind of correct.”
And in Part 2 of a Dre’s Race Review double header, we’re reviewing F1’s Austrian Grand Prix, as the rulebook led to controversy on Saturday, before George Russell led a calm, measured Austrian GP to take his first victory since opening night in Australia, while Max Verstappen might, just might be back. Let’s get into it.
All The Single Yellows, All The Single Yellows
The messiest part of the weekend came on Saturday and specifically Q3. During the field’s final lap of running, Max Verstappen’s on a lap that could have put him on provisional pole. Unfortunately for him, he has a defective rear wing, his car suddenly bottoms out and he spins out of Turn 9, going all the way to the outside wall.
Max is fine, but it puts the session in jeopardy. A single-waved yellow comes out for the marshal zone where Max has stopped. Understandably, everybody aborts… except for George Russell, who finishes his lap, to go to pole position over Charles Leclerc. There’s a flash on the race control board that says there was Double Waved yellows, and while Russell’s pinged for a yellow flag infringement, he was quickly cleared and his pole position stood.
But how do you ask? Props to you if you already watched my final bit of work for Crash where I explained it. But if you missed it, here’s the deal.
Simply put, Russell knew the rules. When Max crashed, there was only a single-waved yellow. In the rulebook, that means slow down and be prepared to change direction. Russell as he approaches Turn 9, takes an extra 100m of lift before braking for the turn. By the time he gets to Turn 10, he enters a green-flag zone, so he can go at full racing speed.
If there’s a single-waved yellow, you ARE allowed to keep your lap as long as you lift. The confusion came over the double-waved yellows. According to reports, Max’s car was so far off the racing line, race control considered leaving it as a single-yellow so everyone could finish their laps, but then had to go to double-waved yellows to clear Verstappen’s car. If Russell passed through Double Yellows (Slow down and be prepared to stop), you wouldn’t be allowed to improve your lap time. But the double yellow didn’t land until after Russell had already crossed the finish line, so only his in-lap was deleted.
It’s a beautiful, intelligent bit of driving from Russell, who’s always had the reputation of being a nerd with the rulebook. Here, he judged it perfectly, slowing down just enough to manage his delta and still be a quarter of a second up by the time he gets to the flag.
Race Control has to answer for some shit here now. By modern standards, if someone stuffs a car, it’s a Red Flag to give the marshals the time to properly remove the car and freeze the clock. To a degree, I get the logic – Verstappen was WAY offline, a good 50 metres by eye judgement. Whether we want to admit it or not as a member of the audience, the show must go on, and the entertainment factor is weighed up in some decision making (CC: IndyCar). But really, this was a red flag given the context of how F1 normally conducts itself. Needlessly messy, but not Russell’s fault. At the end of the day, ala football – You play to the whistle. Even if the ref’s a bit shit.
Tactical Warfare
The biggest Sunday surprise was Max Verstappen. Red Bull brought a massive upgrade package to Red Bull, and the pressure was being laid down for Max from the outside by his manager, Thomas Vermeulen. The man said that Max wants to be a Red Bull lifer, but only if he has a competitive car. In Austria, he was exactly that.
Russell survived the most important element of winning in Austria. Take the front. Mission #1 is to build up enough margin to survive an undercut attempt and he did that. Lewis Hamilton got up to second place, but struggled hard to keep his rear tyres in check, quickly falling to three seconds back. Hamilton was first to blink and switch to the three-stopper again, only this time he lacked the pace to compensate. After a fun battle with Lewis, Max Verstappen got up to second place and then actually started closing in on Russell, he was within three seconds at the end of their first stint. The same happened again during the second stint on the harder compound tyre. It led to my personal favourite strategy call of the season so far.
On Lap 44, Russell pits from the lead, Verstappen was just within a second off him when it happened. Verstappen has a potential ace-in-the-hole, an extra set of medium tyres in his allocation he’d like to use, if he can get to around Lap 53 or so. But as he tried to extend his middle stint, he was reeled in by Kimi Antonelli. Antonelli is within a second by the time Max comes in on Lap 49. Mercedes traps Max in a pincer movement. He hasn’t got the tyre wear to extend to a range where he could get home on his mediums; and he also can’t afford to lose track position to Antonelli, so Red Bull has to surrender and come on probably 5 laps sooner than they would have wanted to.
Max still has a 5-lap delta on tyres compared to George, who we know isn’t the best in managing his hard tyres, but that swing on performance just isn’t big enough until the very end of the race. Russell wins, but by just 1.6 seconds, with Antonelli only 0.3 behind Max at the flag. Two laps either way could have swung it Max’s way, or even Kimi’s with his stint extension early on coming back to him. (Him losing time running wide early on may have cost him a shot at the win too.)
A fascinating tactical battle, well executed by Mercedes who needed a recovery after a timid pitwall performance in Barcelona. Russell’s back in the winner’s circle for the first time since opening day in Australia. A badly needed win to reduce his championship deficit to 40. Given the narratives and the talk the last month, only being down 40 (Marc Marquez anyone?) doesn’t feel quite so wild. An excellent weekend from George, who didn’t suddenly forget how to drive.
The Super Lightning Round (UK Heatwave Edition)
So about that Max Verstappen future talk – Sky Sports reported that Verstappen’s camp made the first move to Zak Brown for a preliminary meeting. Zak’s not an idiot, he’d be foolish to not at least hear him out, but he’s since shut down any talk of a move for Max. I’m inclined to agree here, Verstappen’s probably angling more for 2028 than anything else. Toto Wolff seems to have finally given up his decade-long pursuit of the driver and publicly said he’s not changing drivers, same as McLaren with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri who are both tied down until at least the end of next year. The overall impression I get is that even if Max wanted to leave Red Bull (And there’s no real indication he would), he hasn’t got an elite seat to move into. At least not for now.
Anyone who thought Ferrari were going to walk into Austria and dominate like they did in Catalunya was high on copium. Austria brings out all of their weaknesses. Poor tyre wear due to the heat. The longer straights cost them time due to their lack of top speed and weaker energy deployment compared to Red Bull and Mercedes too. I fear it could be more of the same at Silverstone this weekend. Ferrari admitted over the weekend it got too wrapped up in catching Mercedes and I feel like that tracks. Also, with Hamilton now beating Leclerc for 5 GP’s in a row, something about restoring the feeling needs to be happening in Maranello. Maybe focusing on 2027 might be the move and aiming for second place for this season, especially now Red Bull might finally be moving in the right direction…
As for Charles Leclerc, he’s owed the same benefit of the doubt so many were quick to give Lewis last season, especially given he has new brakes to adapt to.
Arvid Lindblad ignored a team order to go attack Liam Lawson in a meaningless fight for P9 and 10. Spicy. (Lowkey, Liam’s driving very well this season. Just feels like he’s dead to rights in Racing Bulls, even with Alan Permane ruling out a move for Nikola Tsolov in F2 for now.)
Cadillac showed off their first major upgrade package… and had 4 technical problems including both cars dying by Lap 6. Man. PS: The Colton Herta master plan is really not working either. And Hitech has succccccked this season. I like Luke Browning and Dino Beganovic but they weren’t THIS much better than Miyata and Herta. Sheesh. I know the math says they can just give Herta two more FP1 practices to get him over the Superlicense line, but I’m not seeing the payoff here.
Do we reckon Carlos Sainz regrets the Williams move? Feels like a classic case of the bird in the hand (A strong, Top 5 Williams team but had a carryover car for 2025 to prep for this year’s mess), vs Audi (Dad begged him to sign, factory backing is always the safer play long term.) It’s tough out here when a Top 8 driver on the grid is stuck in dross. Ask Fernando.
Someone can tell Liberty Media it can move on from Bernie Ecclestone’s 95-year old ass. Man rolls up, does xenophobia by saying Ferrari has too many Italians, hands out the trophies and leaves. WHY?!
The Verdict: 6/10 (Decent) – Not bad. I can’t complain about a race that tells a good story, had the surprise element of Verstappen’s performance, and climaxed with a two second gap covering the whole podium. That’s not a bad day. Not a great one, but not a bad one. Hamilton vs Verstappen was fun too, even with the fanbases bitching. See you back home.