The Austrian Grand Prix once again delivered a thrilling and unpredictable race until the very end. At the very least, it was a contest full of battles, especially in the midfield. The start was immediately chaotic with Sainz retiring during the formation lap, followed by a collision between Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen at the second corner of the Red Bull Ring. Kimi misjudged his braking and went straight into the four-time world champion.
This incident cleared the way for the McLaren duo, who found themselves leading in first and second place right after the first corner. Norris and Piastri nearly collided themselves around lap 20, just before their first pit stop. On that occasion, Oscar showed great intelligence. The Australian attempted an overtaking move under braking but once he realized it was impossible, he locked up, avoided contact, and after that, he never got close enough to seriously challenge teammate Norris, who secured his third win of the season and now trails his teammate by 15 points in the drivers’ championship.
Charles Leclerc finished third, returning to the podium after Jeddah, Monaco, and Barcelona, with Hamilton in fourth. This result boosted Ferrari’s morale as the team moved back to second place in the constructors’ standings with a one-point lead over Mercedes. The Stuttgart-based team scored only 10 points thanks to Russell’s fifth place. It was a disaster for Red Bull with Verstappen retiring and Tsunoda finishing 16th, the only driver to be lapped twice during the race.
Strategy Recap
As usual, here is a summary of all the strategies observed today. The fastest strategy was Medium-Hard-Medium (M-H-M), as expected, which placed Norris, Piastri, Leclerc, and Hamilton in the top four positions. However, there was also a surprising strategic variation with Russell finishing fifth on Medium-Medium-Hard (M-M-H), as was Bortoleto in eighth. Then Lawson and Alonso used a one-stop Medium-Hard (M-H) strategy to finish sixth and seventh respectively. Hulkenberg came ninth on Soft-Medium-Hard (S-M-H), the only driver to score points using the Soft C5 tire, while Esteban Ocon closed the top ten on Medium-Hard-Hard (M-H-H).
Outside the top ten, some drivers—perhaps not coincidentally—chose to include the Soft tire in their strategies. The C5 was competitive only for a handful of laps on a track temperature above 52°C. Bearman and Gasly ran Soft-Hard-Medium (S-H-M), Hadjar and Colapinto used Soft-Medium-Hard (S-M-H) (Colapinto received a 5-second penalty for forcing Piastri off track), Stroll ran Medium-Hard-Soft (M-H-S), and Tsunoda did Medium-Hard-Medium-Soft (M-H-M-S), also receiving a 10-second penalty for contact with Colapinto. Retirements included Albon, Verstappen, Antonelli, and Sainz.
Lawson and Alonso’s bold one-stop strategy raises questions
This morning, on the eve of the race, we had dismissed the one-stop strategy (read here), considering it, like Pirelli, too risky. However, Lawson and Alonso raised important questions. Especially considering that after the Safety Car restart on lap 3, Liam and Fernando were ninth and tenth, respectively. They eventually finished sixth and seventh. In our view, it was a well-executed strategy. The two drivers did an excellent job, but were also helped by how the race unfolded.
Lawson and Alonso only outperformed three drivers: Albon, who retired, Gasly, who struggled after starting on Soft, and Bortoleto. It should be noted, though, that the Brazilian had more pace than the duo in front towards the end, but perhaps, eager to score his first points, he didn’t push too hard. In the closing laps, he attempted to overtake Alonso but, realizing Fernando was not giving up easily, he likely settled for his first 4 championship points. Had this happened under different circumstances, the result could have been different.
Even if Bortoleto had managed to pass both, we would still praise Liam and Fernando for trusting a strategy others thought impossible. But beyond that, we believe it didn’t offer a real advantage over a two-stop strategy.
Could Ferrari have challenged McLaren with just one pit stop?
We will be direct answering this question: could Ferrari have challenged Norris and Piastri with a one-stop strategy? Probably not. Here’s why. Everything said above about Lawson and Alonso applies here. Additionally, pit stop times in Austria ranged between 19 and 20 seconds, with Leclerc finishing 17 seconds behind Piastri and 19.8 seconds behind Norris.
If you remove the pit stop time, some might argue Leclerc would be second or at least fighting Piastri for P2. However, it’s not that simple because this calculation excludes the tire degradation that would have affected him at the end. Most likely, McLaren would have had no trouble overtaking Charles Leclerc or Lewis Hamilton if they were ahead with much fresher tires. Consider that under similar conditions, using the same tires and comparable pit stop timings, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were lapping between 1:08.2 and 1:08.7 in the final laps, while Leclerc was doing 1:08.7 to 1:09.2—a gap of around half a second per lap.
If Ferrari had tried a one-stop approach, the gap would have likely increased, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton struggling to respond to McLaren’s attacks.
It’s hard to say now whether the final gap would have been smaller, larger, or about the same as Charles Leclerc’s 19.8 seconds behind race leader Norris. Intuitively, we’d say Charles and Hamilton would have finished closer to the leading duo, but the exact tire degradation at the end remains unknown. Liam Lawson and Fernando Alonso were two seconds per lap slower than Norris in the final stages, and at that pace, it would have taken only a few laps for the gap to exceed 10 to 15 seconds.
In our opinion, if any team could have attempted a one-stop strategy, it was McLaren, given their tire management. Ferrari would have found it harder to finish the race well. That said, we believe the Ferrari pit wall made the right call. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton had to manage less, the car endured less stress, and the result would likely have been the same at best.
Pirelli’s commentary
Pirelli Motorsport Director Mario Isola commented after the race: “All three compounds played an important role in the strategies. As expected, the two-stop strategy was the fastest, but those who tried one stop were still quite competitive, finishing in the top ten. In terms of performance, Hard and Medium were quite close, while Soft was competitive only in the early laps before an obvious drop starting around lap seven or eight. Now we head to Silverstone, a track traditionally very tough on tires. We chose a slightly softer dry tire range than before (C2, C3, and C4) and are very curious to see how they perform and how they will influence race strategies.”
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