Motorsport journalist and podcaster
I review the action from the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix with Stuart Codling from GP Racing.
The Austrian Grand Prix, Formula One’s first race back from its COVID-19 hiatus, was everything the sport could have hoped for after a 200-odd-day break.
The race featured plenty of passing, clever and clumsy driving in equal measure, unpredictable unreliability and a battle for the podium that lasted until the very last lap.
Valtteri Bottas took away 25 points from a track around which he’s typically been strong, and with title rival Lewis Hamilton finishing fourth and Red Bull Racing failing to score, he’s stolen an early match in his fourth championship campaign with Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas won a dramatic season-opening Austrian Grand Prix in which only 11 drivers made it to the checkered flag after three safety car interventions.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas has survived an Austrian Grand Prix of high attrition to claim the first win of the 2020 Formula One season.
The Finn led every lap, but his race was far from easy. The grand prix featured three safety car interventions and only 11 finishers at the chequered flag, and Bottas had to manage “critical” gearbox issues that prevented him from exploiting the full performance of his car.
He also had to absorb pressure from teammate Lewis Hamilton in the middle part of the race, though the Briton’s threat faded a little past half distance after becoming afflicted with similar reliability problems.
Mercedes may have a new all-black livery, but its superiority over the field remains stubbornly unchanged, as Valtteri Bottas’s dominant pole so aptly illustrated at the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix.
Not even a trip through the gravel and a clumsy spin on the grass in his second run could keep Bottas from pole and a new track record with a time of 1 minute 2.939 seconds. It was enough to pip teammate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.012 seconds.
The margin between the quickest Mercedes and the next-best car, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, was a foreboding 0.538 seconds. The Dutchman said the gap was exacerbated by balance problems aboard his RB16, but even was forced to admit the Mercedes is simply in a different league.