Max Verstappen, a Red Bull driver, won the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday, advancing his quest for a third straight world championship.
Charles Leclerc of Ferrari came in second and Sergio Perez finished third behind Verstappen. Verstappen was one of the few drivers to stay out during an early Virtual Safety Car period, but the Red Bull driver could not be stopped as he made his way to his fifth consecutive victory and seventh of the season, according to the official website of Formula 1. “Despite an action-packed encounter at the Red Bull Ring that saw several drivers penalised over track limits and strategies differ,” the website reads.
Leclerc temporarily led the pack after using the VSC, but he lost ground to Verstappen as the two worked through their different tyre strategies and the Red Bull demonstrated its sheer speed, which was highlighted by a successful late attempt for the fastest lap bonus point.
Perez overtook Carlos Sainz in the final stages and took advantage of the Ferrari driver’s time penalty violating track limitations to cap off a challenging performance and secure his first podium finish since the Miami Grand Prix four races ago.
Lando Norris was elevated to P4 after a post-race stewards review that saw Carlos Sainz given a 10-second time penalty for exceeding the track limit, capping off a promising weekend for the British driver and McLaren with their batch of upgrades.
Sainz wasn’t the only driver to get a penalty as a result of an Aston Martin post-race complaint, however. Additional five-second time penalties would be assessed to Logan Sargeant, Nyck de Vries, and Yuki Tsunoda, while post-race 10-second time penalties would be assessed to De Vries once again, along with Lewis Hamilton, Alex Albon, and Pierre Gasly.
Esteban Ocon, on the other hand, received two five-second and two 10-second penalties retroactively.
Following Norris in P4 was Sainz in sixth place, Fernando Alonso in five, and then the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in seventh and eighth.
Lance Stroll moved up one position in the preliminary rankings to take ninth place, ahead of Gasly in 10th and Albon in 11th. Zhou Guanyu was moved up to 12th by the penalties from 14th at the flag, surpassing Sargeant, Ocon, and Valtteri Bottas in P15.
The remaining players in the sequence were Oscar Piastri, De Vries, Kevin Magnussen, and Yuki Tsunoda.
When Nico Hulkenberg’s lack of power led him to park at the side of the circuit, it put a stop to Haas’s promising start to the race and brought out the Virtual Safety Car.
