Austria 2.0 - McLaren Madness

It turns out, on occasion that the racing God's do in fact listen to our prayers. We prayed for another fascinating race in Austria and while the gods were listening it took a while for them to answer our calls, last weeks Styrian Grand Prix left much to be desired but perhaps that's because all the special race sauce was preserved for the Austrian Grand Prix.

This week we got action before the race even started with several standout Quali performances including Lando Norris starting P2 and only losing his chance at Pole Position in the very last corner of the Red Bull Ring and unbelievably George 'Mr Saturday' Russell put his Williams FW43B into Q3 using the medium tyre's and somehow managed to start P8 after Sebastian Vettel picked up a deserved penalty for impeding Alonso's flying lap in Q3.

Speaking of penalties, the FIA seemed to be dishing out the punishments with a heavy hand come Sunday's Grand Prix with four drivers receiving their share of seven 5 second time penalties. Some of those penalties I feel were deserved, speeding in the pit-lane was always going to net Lance Stroll a penalty on safety grounds, as was Giovanazzi's overtaking under the safety car.

I would even say Tsunoda's penalties for going over the white line at the pit-lane entry were fully deserved, yes the pit-lane entry is on the racing line at the Red Bull Ring but every driver knows its a slam-dunk penalty for crossing back over that line. To do it twice in one race throws even more water onto the rising star flames that surrounded Yuki Tsunoda coming into the season.

The problem penalties for me were the Norris & Perez incidents. Did Lando race Perez to the limit? Yes, I believe he did, and because of it Perez ended up in the gravel. But Norris had the racing line, he was ahead at the time and therefore it was Perez's responsibility to back out; something we saw him reluctant to do later on against LeClerec.

This race showed that while there might not be much action at the front of the pack, having a competitive midfield makes for an amazing race. Lando somehow managed to extract everything from that McLaren to reel even the leading Mercedes of Bottas in until the dying throws of the race to score another podium; George Russell put up a tremendous fight against Fernando Alonso for the last points paying position and Carlos Sainz once again showed why Ferrari put their money on him instead of keeping Sebastian Vettel.

Few would have thought Sainz would be regularly finishing ahead of LeClerec when Ferrari made the announcement back in 2020 but i'm happy to see the only man that could reliably keep pace with Verstappen (bar perhaps Danny Ric) find his feet somewhere he can make as much of an impact as he did at McLaren. Alpine must be rueing letting him go considering Ocon's performance over the triple header.