The Last Lap Barely Saved an Entire Race | Styrian Grand Prix 2020
We raced for the second time in Red Bull Ring for this season. After last week’s Austrian Grand Prix which was a very exciting season opener, we hoped that a similar race followed a week after. But, it turned out to be a typical boring F1 race. The last couple of laps however saved the race a bit.
The “pandemic” on track is over (For now at least)
I believe when we got to the first race there was some sort of on-track pandemic going on because there were only 11 finishers. From 9 cars that retired, 8 of them suffered from some mechanical failures. These reliability issues were of course a big surprise for everyone in the paddock because this year’s pre-season testing was very promising in terms of durability from every team and power unit suppliers.
A week later it turned out that everyone can be relaxed a bit because there was no such thing anymore. Only Esteban Ocon who suffered a mechanical problem which was similar to what happened with his teammate a week ago.
Ferrari crashed into each other (Again)
The race ended pretty quickly for Ferrari. It happened on the first corner after race start when Leclerc made an over-optimistic yet clumsy move that sends his car over the kerb and made his rear end jumped into Vettel’s rear wing. Vettel’s rear wing was almost completely detached from the car and Leclerc’s car had massive floor damage which requires them to retire both cars very early from the race. Charles was mature enough to completely admit that it was his fault and apologized to the team.
It was certainly what Ferrari wanted especially after a few upgrades they brought to helped the performance a bit. They at least wanted to see how the car behaved on an actual race not just simulations on free practice.
Mercedes was flawless
This week fortunately for them there were no gearbox issues anymore. Hamilton had an astonishing qualifying session with a stunner of a lap in the wet with an over a second advantage ahead of Verstappen in P2. It was a very clean lap and I would say that was one of the best qualifying lap other than Singapore 2018 from Lewis. His performance continued on Sunday and he was able to maintain his lead right from the beginning until the end of the race. Valtteri Bottas also had a good performance on Sunday. He was able to catch Verstappen near the end of the race. At the end of the day it was a Mercedes 1–2 and overall it was a good performance and overall pace for the “Black Arrows” squad.
Racing Point was on a charge
Disappointingly qualified in P12 for Lance Stroll and P17 for Checo Perez after such a treacherous condition on Saturday made them pushing hard on Sunday. Checo brilliantly made up 13 positions to P4 before pitting for mediums after a long stint on the softs. Lance Stroll was also on the charge but not as quick as his teammate. At some point, he even caught by Perez before pitting for a different strategy.
The finish was not so good for them because they had more potential to extract better results. Stroll made a ballsy move on Ricciardo at the penultimate lap but it was not as clean as everyone hoped for. Both of them had a bad exit out of turn 3 after Stroll missed his braking point a bit. This made an open space for Lando Norris to attack and secured P6. Checo was also pushing hard on Albon before suffered a late major front wing damage which requires him to slow down dramatically before getting passed by Lando Norris on the last corner and subsequently losing P5 to the young Brit.
Lando Norris put a stellar last lap performance (Again)
Scenario 7. Now we know if Lando was told to change something on his steering wheel into “Scenario 7” then it means that he will be pushing hard. Lando Norris last lap charge in my opinion saved the race from being a usual F1 boring race. Now we truly see Lando as a rising star after not so bright debut season which he was outscored by Carlos Sainz. His raw pace was certainly there since last year but I am amazed by his improvement towards overall race pace and his racecraft.
The old classic (a bit boring) F1 is back. Luckily we had a big last-lap battle for P5 to compensate lack of action throughout the race. But still, I don’t think that was enough. This week we will see more action from Hungary and I don’t expect more action than we had in Austria as this track is much narrower and a lot of medium to slow speed corners. Will we see Red Bull getting closer to Mercedes? What can we expect from Ferarri’s planned upgrade?
