Max Verstappen started the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix as favourite, with a couple of warring Ferrari cars behind him and a pair of stalking but slower Mercedes the only ones who could stop him this afternoon at Red Bull Ring. Ferrari boys Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz (in that order after a Saturday night bollocking from team boss Mattia Binotto) needed to work together this time to have a shot at challenging the Dutchman, after yesterday’s battle between the Maranello team’s drivers helped Verstappen secure an easy win in the Sprint race at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.
As expected, there was pretty much medium tyres all round for the 20 drivers starting this race. The only exceptions on the hard compound were are Zhou Guanyu (13th), Yuki Tsunoda (16th), Sebastian Vettel (18th) and Fernando Alonso (19th).
Max Verstappen led from Charles Leclerc into Turn 1, as George Russell and Carlos Sainz were battling with the Spanish driver just managing to hold on to third! Sergio Perez was also getting involved. George Russell and Sergio Perez were tussling all the way around that first lap and they finally touched, sending the Red Bull car spinning off into the gravel. He headed slowly down the pit lane and had a huge hole in his side pod.
Mick Schumacher’s Haas had way more straight-line speed and he manages to get ahead of Hamilton for seventh. The Mercedes driver was now back behind two Haas cars, just as he was for much of yesterday’s Sprint.
In the battle for P1, Charles Leclerc still had DRS behind Max Verstappen and had a few little peeks at a move on his championship rival. The Monegasque dived down the inside of Verstappen into Turn 3 but the Red Bull just hanged on – and then forced Ferrari to the outside of Turn 4!
An early stop for George Russell, and he served that five-second time penalty for the incident with Sergio Perez, as he dropped down to 19th. But most important, down the inside went Charles Leclerc on Max Verstappen and he finally had his overtake! The Ferrari driver had the DRS and dived past, Max Verstappen then avoiding making contact and letting the Ferrari through. Into the pits then came Max Verstappen but it wasn’t a particularly quick stop. He came back out in 8th place behind Lando Norris.
Fifteen laps in and both Ferrari cars have been warned twice for exceeding tack limits. One more warning and they would have been shown the black and white flag, which is then followed by potential penalties. After 20 laps, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton were the drivers who started in the top-10 and had yet to stop. Stroll, Tsunoda, Zhou and Alonso also running long.
Ferrari decided to call Charles Leclerc in for his pit stop on lap 27: his stop was 0.6s quicker than Max Verstappen’s, as the Moneagsque was third behind the Red Bull driver around six seconds off but with much fresher tyres. Ferrari brought their second car in the following lap. The problem for Carlos was he came behind Lewis Hamilton who was still running on those medium tyres. But luckily the Mercedes driver also pitted the next lap and Carlos regained his third place.
On lap 33 Charles Leclerc passed Max Verstappen for the lead again! That six second gap disappeared very quickly indeed and Charles – on 12-lap fresher tyres – passed Verstappen into Turn 3! That was very simple indeed for the Ferrari driver, with Verstappen not really fighting that one in truth.
Mick Schumacher believed he was quicker than his teammate, Kevin Magnussen, yesterday and today he was showing it! The Ferrari junior passed Magnussen and now had Esteban Ocon just over six seconds ahead of him.
On lap 37, Red Bull called Max Verstappen in for his second pit stop, mounting a fresh set of hard tyres on the RB18 car. He came back out 3rd. After losing a lot of time due to traffic, Charles Leclerc made his second pit for hard tyres on lap 50 and returned on track behind Max Verstappen, but with the advantage of fresher tyres. The Maranello team then pit Carlos Sainz one lap after Charles and it was now a Verstappen-Leclerc-Sainz top three, which meant that the Ferrari drivers had to regain their position on track again.
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And Charles passed Verstappen for lead for third time today! He had way more pace on these fresher tyres and while the Dutchman defended into Turn 3, Charles got a much better run out of that corner to easily pass the Red Bull. Sadly, while Carlos was chasing Verstappen he was forced to retire with an engine issue. The F1-75 was on fire – flames pouring out. The marshals had to put that out quickly. With the virtual safety car out, Charles Leclerc has took the opportunity for a free pit stop from the lead. In came Verstappen too as the marshalls worked to extinguish the flames.
Charles Leclerc was facing throttle issues in the final laps of the race, as Verstappen closed the gap to less than three seconds, but the Monegasque driver managed to nurse his F1-75 home and win the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix! He sees the chequered flag, and for the first time when not on pole, Charles Leclerc wins the Austrain Grand Prix after a nail-biting final few laps for the Ferrari pit wall. Max Verstappen comes home in third with Lewis Hamilton taking his third podium in a row.
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