F1 opens with Austria thriller

Max and Alex both gained a position on the grid after Red Bull successfully got the stewards to reverse the decision from Saturday, which saw Lewis Hamilton drop from second to fifth. That meant Max was on the front row on medium tyres and Alex fourth on softs, while Pierre started from 12th and Daniil 13th.

Max got away well and was comfortable in second place, aiming to make the most of his tyre advantage as the only driver on the mediums in the top ten. However, an electrical issue saw him forced to retire on lap 14 after slowing on track, with the car coming back to the garage for investigations. That saw Alex take up the mantle as he chased a maiden podium, and a late Safety Car when George Russell retired with engine problems saw Red Bull make an excellent strategic call. Alex switched to new soft tyres and immediately passed Sergio Perez for third place, before another Safety Car delay.

On the restart, Alex was on the verge of pulling a brilliant move around the outside of Hamilton for second place and looked favourite for victory but contact with the Mercedes spun him out of the points. Hamilton was handed a five-second time penalty for the incident, while Alex was later forced to retire on lap 67, with a different problem to the one that affected his team-mate. Pierre and Daniil were both up into the points before Daniil was unfortunately the ninth retirement of the race, suffering a puncture on the pit straight with just over a lap remaining.

In among all the action, Pierre managed to negotiate all of the incidents to finish a strong seventh, ending up just behind Sergio Perez and picking up six points to start the season. We will now investigate what happened to the two Red Bull cars and prepare for another race in Austria next weekend.

Toyoharu Tanabe, Technical Director, Honda Racing F1

“The first race of the season ended with three of our cars retiring, which is disappointing. So the only positive is that Gasly drove well to give AlphaTauri some points in their first race. For Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, Verstappen was going well from second on the grid, until he had to retire due to an electrical issue. Albon was very unlucky to lose second place in the last few laps, but he was still fighting for points until he also had to retire, due to a suspected PU electrical issue. At the moment, we are investigating the causes of the two failures. We stay here in Austria for the second round next weekend and in the limited time available we will analyse all our data and try and take countermeasures to ensure we perform more reliably in Round 2.”

Pierre Gasly, Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, 7th

“It felt amazing to get back racing after such a long break and I think we started the season with a really exciting race. If someone had told us that we would have been P7 on Sunday we would have signed straight away, so I think we can be very happy with my result after a difficult start to the weekend. We knew the race was going to be a challenge because the Renaults, McLarens and Racing Points are very strong, but I had some good fights on track and managed to stay out of trouble until the end. It was a really good one for us today!”

Daniil Kvyat, Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, 12th

“The race was going really well for me until the contact with Ocon, I had a very good pace and fresher tyres. After the collision, my front wing and a suspension broke, I also had a puncture, so my race was over. This moment cost me a lot of points today, so it’s a real shame and very disappointing to finish the day like this. Today it could have been a very strong race for me.”

Alex Albon, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, 13th

“It’s still quite fresh so I’ve got to be careful what I say but there’s nothing to add apart from how frustrating that is. I really think we could have easily won that race. We had a great strategy, the guys did a great job in the pit stops, yes we had a little bit of fortune with the Safety Car, but the car was feeling good. The hard tyre wasn’t very strong today and I knew the Mercedes would have cold tyres on the re-start, so I already planned to get past them within a few laps of the Safety Car coming in. I feel like I had completed the move on Lewis already, and I was thinking about getting Bottas on the next lap. The contact with Lewis was so late in the corner that it surprised me. I was right on the edge of the track and I knew if I gave him all the space I could it would be up to him if he wants to crash or not. This time I was the one on the attack and he was defending. I wouldn’t say this one hurts more than Brazil but that incident was maybe 50/50 whereas this one isn’t. Obviously we’ve got next weekend to focus on now, we’ll need a bit of luck to have the same opportunity as today, but let’s see.”

Max Verstappen, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, NC

“I’m not quite sure what happened yet, we’ll investigate and find out but of course that’s not how you want to start the season. I had a good start, unlike last year, and quite early on I could see that Valtteri was quick so fighting for the win was always going to be a big challenge. I think it would have been an easy podium and third would have been a decent start to the season but what can you do? This is racing and it is what it is, you can’t change the result now. It is a shame for everyone who worked so hard to get us here this weekend but we will just focus on the race next week and hope for something better.”