Ferrari race report in Spielberg: Carlos Sainz P3, Charles Leclerc P11 at Red Bull Ring | 2024 F1 Austrian GP. Ferrari race report in the 2024 Formula 1 Austrian Grand Pix.

Here is our full text transcript from the 11th round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the Austrian Grand Prix:

Here we go then, it’s race day at the Austrian Grand Prix! This event always produces great racing and we hope for more of the same this afternoon at the Red Bull Ring.

Max Verstappen has been in scintillating form all weekend, topping, or winning, every session and starts on pole position today. Lando Norris lines up alongside him for the second day in a row and will hope to make amends for letting the championship leader back through after overtaking him in the Sprint. George Russell, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton round out the top five, while there was controversy last night when McLaren’s protest over Oscar Piastri’s lap deletion was rejected, so the Australian will start in seventh. Charles Leclerc begins the Austrian Grand Prix from P6.

We’ll see if Max Verstappen and Lando Norris get away still in the top two and then start to pull away from the rest in the race’s opening laps, but it appears that going in to the race that the Mercedes’ and Ferraris are in combat for the final podium positions.

Those four cars start in third to sixth – in the order of George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc – and going on yesterday’s Sprint and the weekend so far, it appears Mercedes again have the slight edge over the Ferraris on pace as we saw last week in Spain.

Of course, the penalised Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren – who had qualified third but dropped down to seventh after being clobbered for a track limits infringement at Turn Six at the end of Q3 – may have something to say about that and will be looking to get ahead of the four ahead of him.

That should also apply to Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull, who is eighth, but the Mexican hasn’t yet shown the pace to suggest he’s going to be as big a threat to the Mercedes’ and Ferrari cars as Piastri should.

Interestingly, Red Bull and McLaren have gone a different way with their tyre strategy. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have saved two new hards, so will likely go medium-hard-hard, whereas Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have saved two sets of new mediums, so you would think it will be medium-medium-hard or medium-hard-medium for them. If the medium tyre proves to be the better race tyre, McLaren could have the upper hand. Don’t expect to see the soft tyre this afternoon as it’s wearing out too quickly. It will all be about when you use your medium and hard tyres, plus how long you can do with each stint.

The entire field are starting on the medium tyre apart from Zhou Guanyu, who starts from the pit lane on the hard tyre. The variety in strategy will come later in the race…

The formation lap is under way and everyone gets off the line cleanly. You can feel the tension at the Red Bull Ring as we anticipate Lando Norris will go for it on the opening lap

Lap 1/71: Max Verstappen gets a brilliant launch and pulls clear of Lando Norris. Lando Norris does well to keep George Russell at bay, while Lewis Hamilton has passed Carlos Sainz for fourth. Further behind, Perez pushes Piastri off the track at Turn Four and drops behind Charles Leclerc, only to come back at him a couple corners later. The Ferrari driver breaks his front wing images show and he’s forced to pit at the end of the opening lap.

Lap 3/71: Lewis Hamilton passes his Mercedes team-mate George Russell into Turn 3, but Russell comes back to retake the position at Turn 4.

Lap 4/71: Max Verstappen has already opened up a two-second gap to Lando Norris in second. Norris himself is nearly two seconds clear of George Russell in third. Positive signs for Red Bull, but Norris has often come good later in stints in recent races.

Lap 5/71: Carlos Sainz gets ahead of Lewis Hamilton and the stewards say there is no further action on their Turn One incident. There is some fantastic wheel-to-wheel racing going on with Lewis Hamilton chasing Carlos Sainz for fifth and Sergio Perez challenging for Oscar Piastri for sixth behind them.

Lap 9/71: Max Verstappen’s lead is still growing, and is now up to 3.2 seconds. Similarly, Lando Norris has pulled 2.7s clear of third-placed George Russell. Norris will not want to let that gap to Verstappen get too much bigger.

Lap 12/71: Max Verstappen moves to five seconds clear of Lando Norris, with George Russell only a couple seconds behind the McLaren driver. Carlos Sainz is another second back and Lewis Hamilton is out of DRS range now in the fight for fourth. Then comes Oscar Piastri, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon.

Lap 15/71: Charles Leclerc is overtaken by Alex Albon in the Williams and drops to 19th.

Lap 16/71: Max Verstappen continues to move further into the distance. The world championship leader is almost six seconds clear of Lando Norris, who is now four seconds clear of George Russell in third. McLaren will hope that the hard compound will change things drastically, because at the moment Verstappen is cruising.

Lap 18/71: Charles Leclerc pits for a second time in this race and is now last. Interestingly, Charles Leclerc only did 15 laps on those hard tyres. If he does not have any damage, that means the hards are not great this afternoon. Red Bull saved two sets of hard tyres for their drivers remember. The McLaren team must be reading this blog! Norris’ engineer tells him:
“The hard looks poor which makes this stint important. Also remember, we have two mediums and the Red Bulls don’t.” Max Verstappen is five seconds ahead of Norris.

Lap 21/71: Lewis Hamilton is into the pits for what could be an undercut attempt on Carlos Sainz in front of him. Sergio Perez also pits from seventh. Hamilton is accused of crossing the white line on the way into the pits by Oscar Piastri behind him.

Lap 22/71: Fernando Alonso makes contact with Zhou Guanyu at Turn Three as he barges his way into 12th place. That incident is under investigation. Zhou says “what the **** is he doing?!”

Lap 23/71: George Russell comes in for the mediums and also Carlos Sainz for the hards. No change in the order as Carlos Sainz stays ahead of Hamilton in fifth and Russell is in fourth.

Lap 23/71: The top two decide to stop at the same time, at the end of lap 23. That means Oscar Piastri, who has yet to stop, is momentarily into the lead. Verstappen’s lead over Norris as they emerge from the pits remains around six seconds.

Lap 24/71: That’s very bad news for Lewis Hamilton. His loss of control on the way into the pits, where he nipped over the white line, has resulted in a five-second penalty. He’ll have to serve that at his next pit stop, which could leave him vulnerable to Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez behind him.

Lap 26/71: Oscar Piastri comes into the pits from the lead for a set of hard tyres. Piastri emerges in sixth place and has Hamilton five seconds up the road.

Lando Norris wasn’t happy with the timing of Max Verstappen’s release from the pits when they both stopped a few laps ago. The stewards are investigating it now. A penalty for Verstappen would make things very interesting…

Lap 28/71: Fernando Alonso is handed a penalty for causing a collision against Zhou Guanu. Alonso is running in 11th place but that penalty will cost him.

Lap 33/71: And there’s confirmation that Sergio Perez has been pinged for speeding in the pit lane. His hopes of making any further progress from P7 would appear to be over barring something dramatic.

Lap 34/71: Charles Leclerc is in for his third stop of the race. It seems a little bit early with 36 laps to go, but you would assume the Ferrari driver will be attempting to make it to the end on this set. The Moneagsque is currently running in 18th and has some serious work to do to get into the points.

Lap 35/71: Both Alpines have just got past Fernando Alonso, but didn’t do it without a little battle of their own. Pierre Gasly saw an opportunity to get his team-mate Esteban Ocon as well as the Aston Martin, but Ocon was wise to it and forced Gasly wide. Gasly has come onto team radio to express his displeasure at being made to run over the sausage kerb. Ocon continues to run in P11, with Gasly in P12.

Lap 39/71: Meanwhile, Sergio Perez is once more being made to look very ordinary in comparison with his Red Bull team-mate. Perez is 40 seconds back from Verstappen on track in seventh, and is doing little to relieve growing pressure.

Lap 41/71: Max Verstappen says “I don’t know what’s happening, the tyres are suddenly really bad.” Verstappen and Lando Norris are still matching each other with the lead at eight seconds.

Norris catching Verstappen: Lap 43/71: Suddenly the gap is down to six seconds out in front and Verstappen seems to be genuinely struggling with his tyres more than Norris.

Lap 46/71: Just like Lewis Hamilton, Alex Albon receives a five-second time penalty for crossing the white line at pit entry. Albon is currently in 14th place for Williams.

Lap 47/71: Carlos Sainz comes into the pits for the medium tyres and comes out in sixth place.

Lap 48/71: Oscar Piastri has got the job done on Lewis Hamilton, whose tyres appear to have gone off. The McLaren driver is up to P3 for now, but his realistic target – once everyone has stopped – will be catching Carlos Sainz for fourth. Lap 52/71: Verstappen has a slow stop! It’s 6.5 seconds and the lead is down to three seconds as Norris pits too. WOW. Both cars are on the medium tyres but Verstappen’s are used.

Lap 52/71: Verstappen is pushing hard on the out lap but nearly goes off at Turn Four. He locks up and that front right tyre will surely be flat-spotted. His lead is down to two seconds.

Lap 55/71: Norris has a look at Turn Three to replicate what he did yesterday but Verstappen covers. Verstappen keeps the lead. Norris thinks Verstappen moved in the braking zone. Norris accuses Verstappen of moving under braking

Lap 5/71: Max Verstappen was momentarily out of DRS range but Lando Norris is back within a second as they start the 57th lap.

Norris makes a move but lets Verstappen through! Lap 59/71: Verstappen goes for it at Turn Three, locks up and takes the lead! But he goes off the track! Norris lets Verstappen back through at Turn Four. Is that a track limits violation?

Lap 64/71: CONTACT IS MADE! Norris and Verstappen hit each other at Turn Three but they BOTH have punctures. It’s a left rear puncture for Norris and right front for Verstappen. Huge drama. Piastri goes around the outside of Sainz at Turn Six and he’s into second place. Piastri is only three seconds off the lead too! Lap 65/71: Max Verstappen re-joins the race in the P5, but Lando Norris is out of the race!

Lap 65/71: And now we have a Virtual Safety Car for debris on track.

Lap 68/71: Max Verstappen has been given a 10-second penalty for causing that collision with Lando Norris. He’s 15 seconds clear of Nico Hulkenberg in P6, so should still take fifth.

Lap 69/71: Russell leads by 2.6 seconds from Piastri. This could be a win for Mercedes here unless Piastri can find more time.

Chequered flag: From absolutely nowhere, George Russell has the second grand prix victory of his Formula 1 career. It was a pretty quiet afternoon for the Mercedes driver, but he’s been gifted the victory by Max Verstappen and Lando Norris squabbling over the lead. Oscar Piastri crosses the line two seconds behind George Russell, with Carlos Sainz in third.

Lewis Hamilton comes home in fourth for Mercedes. What a race!