Charles Leclerc Revives F1 Title Hopes: Three Takeaways From Austrian GP
Charles Leclerc is back.
The Monegasque star found his way onto the podium with his first win since Australia in April, managing to overtake Max Verstappen three times at Red Bull Ring while battling throttle issues in the final laps of the Austrian Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver admitted over the team radio that he was “really scared” and said after the race that his throttle “would get stuck at 20 or 30% throttle in the low speed,” making it a “very tricky” win.
Sunday’s grand prix marked the first time Leclerc has won from another spot other than pole position. He started second, just behind Verstappen who ran away with a Sprint victory on Saturday.
“I definitely needed that one,” Leclerc said. “The last five races have been incredibly difficult for myself and for the team. To finally show that we have the pace in the car and we can do it is incredible.”
It looked like his teammate, Carlos Sainz, would join him on the podium until smoke emerged from the rear of his car, which eventually went up in flames during lap 57. That left Verstappen to try to close the gap Leclerc had created, which he almost did given the Monegasque’s throttle problems.
Verstappen, who finished second, said too much tire degradation prevented him from attacking Leclerc, adding, “Immediately it seemed like we were struggling quite a bit with the tyres, and basically that continued on every single compound.”
Hamilton rounded out the podium with his third consecutive third place finish, closing the gap in the standings between him and teammate George Russell. It may be a surprise to some Formula One fans to see both Mercedes cars in the top five for the Austrian Grand Prix after the pair crashed within moments of each other during qualifying.
All three drivers on the podium were summoned hours after the race for alleged breaches of “parc ferme instructions.” According to multiple reports, it’s likely related to the drivers’ physios interacting with them, such as giving or taking items from the driver, before they are weighed. All three were dealt €10,000 suspended fines.
With the win, Leclerc has jumped over Sergio Perez in the drivers’ standings, trailing Verstappen by just 38 points. As for the constructor title, there is now a 56 point gap between Red Bull and Ferrari as their driver pairings continue to duke it out on the circuit.
Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc on podium after Austrian Grand Prix.
IMAGO / Nordphoto
Here are three takeaways from Red Bull Ring where track limit penalties and retirements from Red Bull and Ferrari shook-up the standings.
Ferrari finally got the strategy right.
One of the biggest questions surrounding Ferrari heading into round 11 was whether they would nail the strategy or if the botched streak would continue. And their showing during the sprint race did not help matters.
The team has had a stretch of questionable calls: a pitting snafu in Monaco that double stacked Leclerc and Sainz, the pair fighting it out during the British Grand Prix before having Leclerc overtake Sainz and lastly, opting to pit Sainz instead of Leclerc, who was in the lead on hard tires, during the late safety car during the same race. Team boss Mattia Binotto said after the Silverstone race that it was “too close to stop both of them.”
Coming into the Austrian Grand Prix, there were reports from Italian media outlets of tension within the Ferrari camp following Sainz’s maiden F1 victory at Silverstone. Leclerc, though, denied the reports earlier this weekend.
Ferrari fans were left bewildered again on Saturday as Sainz and Leclerc went wheel-to-wheel during the sprint race, allowing Verstappen to cruise away with a victory. The battle impacted tire life, and both Ferrari drivers agreed that while their duel wasn’t the deciding factor on not contending with Verstappen, it could not be repeated. Sainz said his tires did overheat in the duel with his teammate, compromising their performance.
The pace, though, was evident for Ferrari, Leclerc saying over the team radio Saturday, “We are quick. We can get them tomorrow.”
Sunday’s grand prix saw the pair working in tandem, putting pressure on Verstappen within the first few laps. The Red Bull driver eventually said over the team radio “I cannot hold this long” before Leclerc overtook him. Ferrari and Red Bull’s strategies appeared to overlap, and instead of going for a conservative one-stop, Ferrari pulled their drivers in for a two-stop strategy.
Ferrari put the pressure on Verstappen, and for a period of time, it looked like it would be a possible 1-2 finish for Ferrari for the first time since the season-opener in Bahrain. That is until disaster struck. The Spaniard started closing in on Verstappen to make a pass on lap 57, smoke emerged from his car. Sainz pulled off into the run-off area at Turn 4, and all of a sudden, his car went up in flames with him still in the vehicle.
“I saw in my mirrors that the car was catching [on] fire, but at the same time, I was pressing the brake,” Sainz said in the post-race press conference. “And as soon as I tried to jump out, I saw the car going backward, and I didn’t want to leave the car out of control rolling backwards while jumping out.
“I was calling the marshals to come and help me to put something on the tires to stop the car [from] rolling down, but I think the whole process was a bit slow. At some point, there was so much fire that I had to really get a move on and jump out.”
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz jumping out of car, which caught on fire.
IMAGO / PanoramiC
Leclerc almost had a reliability scare of his own. His throttle appeared to be open on corners, and there was regular contact between him and the team over the radio. Ferrari has not had the best reliability record in recent weeks as Leclerc started from the back of the grid in Montreal after adding new power unit components. He missed out on possible wins in Spain, Monaco, Azerbaijan and Great Britain due to a mix of reliability woes and strategy snafus.
“I knew it was not a problem with the engine because it was really the pedal that was feeling weird,” Leclerc said after the Austria race. “First at pick up and then at the end it would not come back to zero. But luckily it went until the end of the race.”
Binotto said during the post-race press conference he needs to confirm, but “initial feedback is more of a mechanical one” for Leclerc’s car.
A midfield shakeup.
Coming into Sunday, there were concerns about both Alpine and McLaren while Haas F1 looked poised to have another dual points performance.
Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso were supposed to start Saturday’s Sprint from fifth and eighth, respectively, until the Spaniard’s car had a suspected electrical issue. His car was wheeled back to pit lane as the race started, and Alpine was unable to fix the problem for him to compete, landing him at the back of the grid for Sunday.
Ocon, meanwhile, had a strong run to a P6 finish. But after the checkered flag, he appeared to encounter an issue of his own as he stopped on the exit of Turn 1. But, the team managed to get both cars on the grid come Sunday, and the duo powered to a dual point finish with Ocon in fifth and Alonso in tenth.
Meanwhile, McLaren had a shaky qualifying as Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo came in 15th and 16th respectively. Norris only recorded 14 laps in the first practice before his engine went up in a puff of smoke due to a power unit failure, and then he encountered a “scary” braking problem in qualifying on Friday.
“Just on the back foot comparing to other teams, and now even more issues in qualifying which means in the middle of the braking zone, the car just goes straight on, which is pretty scary,” Norris said Friday.
Ricciardo has had a rough season compared to his teammate, struggling to break into the top 10. Heading into the Sprint, McLaren was just six points ahead of Alpine, and only Ocon scored points (three) in the Sprint out of the four drivers.
But, life seemed to come back to McLaren on Sunday. Norris and Ricciardo started ninth and tenth, respectively, and managed to stay within the same range, finishing seventh and ninth, despite the obvious struggles earlier in the weekend. The duo scored a double points finish, and now Alpine and McLaren are tied at 81 points in the constructor standings, trailing Mercedes by a whooping 156 points.
And although the two teams will likely be the talk of the midfield, there’s a third team that cannot go without a mention—Haas F1.
The American-owned team has historically struggled in recent years, but last weekend, they snagged their first double points finish in years. And they looked poised to repeat with Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher qualifying in the top eight. The duo tried to hold off Lewis Hamilton during the Sprint, and Magnussen managed to stay ahead of the Mercedes star.
Schumacher, though, expressed frustration over being left exposed to Hamilton, but team boss Guenther Steiner said the data supported keeping Magnussen in front.
“[Swapping] wouldn’t have worked, because he wasn’t faster. Obviously you are faster because you are in DRS,” Steiner said, per motorsport.com. “We spoke about this before the race. I explained to them, if you can come out after the start behind each other, the second one thinks he is faster because you are nine-tenths of a second faster because of the DRS effect.
“But that doesn’t make you faster, because as soon as you go in front, the other guy is nine-tenths faster. As soon as you let somebody by, Lewis is so close and will sneak by as well and then get us afterwards.”
Come Sunday, Schumacher’s confidence growth was evident, overtaking his teammate and pushing Ocon for fifth place at one point. In the end, he finished sixth—his best-ever finish.
Is Mercedes back?
Team principal Toto Wolff said it himself after the race—“We didn’t expect to be very competitive here.”
It has been a rough start to the season for Mercedes, who has won the last eight constructor titles, as Hamilton struggled to find a rhythm in this year’s car. George Russell routinely finished in the top five until last weekend in Silverstone when he jumped out of his car to check on Zhou Guanyu. But since Miami, Hamilton has routinely finished in the top 10.
The Silver Arrows seemed poised to continue its streak until both Hamilton and Russell crashed during qualifying just moments apart. Both cars required repairs, including new gearboxes, but Hamilton’s were more extensive, needing a new chassis. During Saturday’s press conference, Wolff said the cars endured “a lot of damage.”
“I think we have two floors, two 'boxes that we need to check. A rear wing, lots of little bits of pieces. ... In the garage in the early evening it looked like somebody dropped a Lego car on the floor. But the mechanics are doing great work.”
Both managed to start within the top ten on the grid come Sunday, Russell fourth and Hamilton eighth, but the misfortunate continued to plague the team. Russell was involved in an opening lap collision that resulted in him being handed a five-second penalty and Sergio Perez being forced to retire early from damage. The young Mercedes driver fell all the way to P19 during lap 12, facing an uphill battle as he recovered the loss. He found his way back up to fourth.
Between Russell’s and Hamilton’s finishes, Mercedes out-scored both Red Bull and Ferrari, who have been battling for the team title throughout the first half of the season.
"We were looking so good in qualifying and then I crashed the damn thing,” Hamilton said to Sky Sports F1. “Getting your head back around that, knowing the team worked so hard to build a new car for me. ... That affects everything, it affects our budget and so many people that have to build new parts.
"That's never a great feeling but to get back up there and get great points for the team is just a small token of my appreciation."
Hamilton crossed the finish line 40 seconds behind winner Leclerc, but it’s still an improvement after a roller coaster first half of the season.
"We're slowly getting there, we just need to keep chipping away,” Wolff said to Sky Sports F1. “We are missing a few tenths here and there. I think we've halved the gap in the last few months, we understand better, but we are still third and fourth and in the middle of nowhere.
“If I tried to take positives on race pace, if we were able to start in the top six probably we could have held on to Max.”
Mercedes now sits just 66 points behind Ferrari and 122 from leader Red Bull, creating what could be an interesting three-team battle for the second half of the season with 11 races left.
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