The F1 Austrian GP ended up being a thrilling out as Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen took the win, which led to some fantastic numbers too.
The F1 Austrian GP weekend at Red Bull Ring already started to look away from Mercedes with the overheating situation as Ferrari had the upperhand with Red Bull looking like a dark horse. There were incidents in the practice sessions to start off.
With Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel having a problem in Q3, teammate Charles Leclerc eased in to score pole with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in second but a three-place penalty dropped him to fourth as Red Bull’s Verstappen moved into the front-row.
The Dutchman, though, had a poor getaway as Leclerc led the way from Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton at the start. However, Verstappen came back well to snatch the lead from Leclerc and win the grand prix with Bottas rounding out the Top 3.
Vettel fought back to fourth with Hamilton only fifth ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris with Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly in seventh, McLaren’s Carlos Sainz eighth and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi ninth and 10th respectively.
Here’s some key statistics and information from the Austrian GP weekend:
- Verstappen scored his career’s sixth win at his 90th race. It was his second Austrian GP win as he joined a long list of drivers with two at Red Bull Ring. Mexico is the only other race he has won twice. He is yet to win a grand prix from pole.
- With his first F1 win in 2019, Verstappen has now at least one race victory in the last four seasons from 2016 onward. He extended his Top 5 finishes to 18 consecutive races.
- Red Bull scored its 60th win, second in Austria. It was also Honda’s second win at Red Bull Ring with the last coming in 1987.
- It was Honda’s first hybrid F1 win as the set is complete now with all four manufacturers having registered at least one victory with their hybrid power unit. It was their first win since the 2006 Hungarian GP.
- Bottas scored his 38th career podium, Verstappen his 25th and Leclerc his fourth.
- Leclerc claimed his second career pole as it was third pole for Ferrari in 2019. Leclerc also took his career’s best result of second. Leclerc has now led 124 laps without a win, only Chris Amon is above him with 183 laps led.
- Verstappen registered his career’s fifth fastest lap but only first of the season. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull each have three fastest laps each this season.
- With Hamilton only fifth, it was his first non-podium result in 10 races with the last coming in 2018 Mexican GP. The 10 grand prix is his second best run of podium finishes with the best being 16 consecutive races. He also cannot better or equal his own record of nine podium finishes from the start of the season with him only getting eight.
- The record for consecutive points finishes, however, continues on for Hamilton, Bottas and Vettel – for the former two, it has stretched to 21 F1 races now in Austrian GP which is on since 2018 British GP and for the latter, it sits at 19 races since 2018 Hungarian GP. Verstappen also has 18 consecutive points finishes.
- The front row of Leclerc and Verstappen is the youngest in F1 history with a combined age of 43 years and 165 days. The podium with Verstappen, Leclerc and Bottas is the youngest since 2008 Italian GP which had Vettel, Heikki Kovalainen and Robert Kubica – less than 200 days separating the two feats.
- First time in 2019 for all three top teams represented on the podium. The last time was in 2018 Abu Dhabi GP – only Verstappen is the common driver in both.
- Six drivers were given grid penalties for Austrian GP. Only two drivers started in the same grid position that they qualified in – Leclerc and Romain Grosjean.
- Sainz gained 11 places in the race, starting in 19th and finishing 8th. With Norris in sixth, McLaren registered its third double points finish of 2019 which is the total it had in 2018. The team is only 10 points behind after nine races, what they scored in whole.
- Alfa Romeo scored its first double points finish since 1951 British GP with Giovinazzi registering his first career F1 point. He is also the first Italian to score in F1 since Vitantonio Liuzzi did in 2010 Korean GP. If we count the team as Sauber, the team had its last double points finish in 2018 Mexican GP.
- Magnussen qualified fifth, started 10th due to a penalty, and finished down in 19th place, losing nine places in the race.
- The race result had two drivers of five teams inside the Top 10 with Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Alfa Romeo. The last time it happened was in 2018 Australian GP with the same four teams except it was Renault in place of Alfa Romeo.
- No retirements from Austria GP, first time that has happened this season. The last time every car was classified as finishing was the 2018 Chinese GP – Brendon Hartley though did not see the chequered flag after retiring five laps before. The last time all cars saw the chequered flag was in 2016 Japanese GP.
- First double Q3 for Alfa Romeo and also Raikkonen officially had its 200th grand prix start – only four others have more than 300 grand prix starts.
- Mercedes, Alfa Romeo and Williams continued with its 100 percent reliability record.
- Four penalty points were given out in total with two for Magnussen for being out of his grid position too early and one each for both Russell and Hamilton for blocking in qualifying. The Dane has three in total while it is the first for both Russell and Hamilton.
Four in a row! In the #AustrianGP, @WilliamsRacing once again perform the DHL Fastest Pit Stop. #DHLF1 #F1
➡️All pit stop times: https://t.co/J27YVFsufC pic.twitter.com/ohnYjZnUSC
— DHL_Motorsports (@DHL_Motorsports) June 30, 2019
The stats were compiled by Jack Elleker and Darshan Chokhani