The saying goes that all good things are worth waiting for. The wait for F1 2020 to get underway took 217 days and it was worth the wait.
F1 2020 kicked off at the picturesque Red Bull Ring in Austria with a front-row lock out for Mercedes with Valtteri Bottas leading the way, ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton. But one hour before lights out Hamilton was demoted to fifth on the grid for failing to slow under yellows, ironically brought out by Bottas, in the final moments of Saturday qualifying.
Bottas led cleanly away from the start with Max Verstappen pursuing in second place. While the Merc driver was quicker in the opening salvo of the race, Verstappen and Red Bull were playing the long game on the medium tyres.
Unfortunately, Verstappen would pull out of the race several laps later with a suspected electrical issue. It wasn’t only Verstappen who would rue the missed opportunity as the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo was forced to stop a few laps later. Next Lance Stroll’s Racing Point was pulled into the garage after the Canadian reported a loss of power before Haas F1’s Kevin Magnussen speared out of the race with what looked like brake failure. Magnussen’s retirement prompted the first safety car appearance on lap 26.
At this stage, Bottas was comfortably in the lead, with teammate Hamilton closing him down fairly quickly. Bottas easily controlled the restart of the race, with Alex Albon now in third, behind Hamilton, for Red Bull.
Ferrari’s showing in the first Grand Prix weekend of the season was simply dismal. Charles Leclerc and Seb Vettel managed only the 10th and 11th quickest time in quali and looked to being barely able to hold onto the rear of the Racing Point in the opening half of Sunday’s race. Nevertheless, Leclerc fought his way past the McLaren of Carlos Sainz at the restart to run sixth.
The race seemed to settle as the Mercedes duo held a lead of 10 seconds over third-placed man Albon. It wasn’t all plain sailing, however, as the pitwall warned both Bottas and Hamilton to stay off the kerbs, as these were causing disturbance on the gearbox sensors.
It wasn’t long before Haas suffered their second retirement of the race. Similar to that of his teammate, Magnussen, Romain Grosjean appeared to suffer brake failure. It was followed by the retirement of Williams’s George Russell on lap 51 which prompted the second safety car period. While Mercedes opted to skip the pitlane, Red Bull called in Albon and fitted a set of soft tyres. It dropped the Thai driver to fourth behind Sergio Perez but he made short work of the Racing Point. Another safety car was prompted shortly afterwards for Kimi Raikkonen, who saw his front-right wheel completely dislodge itself.
Albon, now in third, was in the pound seats with fresh tyres. He pulled off a move around the outside of Hamilton into Turn 4 but the pair touched and the Red Bull was spun into the gravel. The contact not only cost Albon a shot at a first podium finish, but quite possibly his first win.
To add insult to injury Albon would be forced into retirement a few laps later. Hamilton was correctly handed a five-second penalty for causing a collision.
While Bottas maintained his lead, Leclerc took to heart the adage of being in it to win it. While the Ferrari was never going to win the Grand Prix, the Monagasque kept his nose clean and pulled off a few stunning moves to finish an impressive second after the application of Hamilton’s five-second penalty.
But still the drama wasn’t over. The final restart of the race saw an almighty scrap between McLaren teammates Lando Norris and Sainz for fifth. It was Norris who emerged from the battle to charge after Perez for fourth place.
The McLaren driver pulled off a cheeky move to get past Perez. Fourth place would have been a great result for McLaren but Norris produced a stunning final lap that not only netted him the fastest lap of the race but also ensured that he jumped Hamilton by two–tenths of second. It is their first podium finish for the 20-year-old.
Bottas followed up his pole position with a measured win, while Leclerc, despite Ferrari’s woes, salvaged second place. No team was more elated, though, than McLaren, as Norris took a memorable third place finish. Hamilton was classified as fourth ahead of Sainz in fifth.
Perez was sixth for Racing Point ahead of Pierre Gasly in seventh and Esteban Ocon in eighth. Antonio Giovinazzi salvaged two points for Alfa Romeo in ninth ahead of Vettel in 10th.
For the last three years the Austrian Grand Prix has been one to remember. We get to do it all again this weekend, as F1 remains at the Red Bull Ring for round two of the 2020 season.
