Bottas resists pressure from Vettel to take second win

2017 Austrian Grand Prix summary

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Valtteri Bottas took his second victory in Formula One after a close finish in the Austrian Grand Prix.

2017 Austrian Grand Prix in pictures
His lead came under threat twice during the race – the first time when he was investigated for a possible jump start. The stewards concluded his rapid getaway was legal despite complaints from Sebastian Vettel.

the Ferrari driver was hot on the tail of his rival over the closing laps, but never got close enough to put Bottas on defence. The pair crossed the line separated by just six-tenths of a second.

It was just as close in the battle for third place, as Lewis Hamilton fought back from his grid penalty to put Daniel Ricciardo under pressure. The Red Bull driver had to cover off an attack from Hamilton on the penultiamte lap on his way to a fifth consecutive podium finish.

Kimi Raikkonen came home fifth after Hamilton overtook him through the pits stops. He was followed home by Romain Grosjean, who briefly got ahead of him at the start, and the two Force India drivers. The Williams pair completed the top ten having started from the penultimate row of the grid.

Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso were eliminated on the first lap after a collision triggered by Daniil Kvyat. The Toro Rosso driver was given a drive-through penalty for the contact.

2017 Austrian Grand Prix reaction

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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87 comments on “Bottas resists pressure from Vettel to take second win”

  1. Great drive from Bottas. Didn’t put a foot wrong all race, even with the immense pressure from Vettel at the end. A couple of things I’ve noted that may have gone under the radar

    1. From a personal view as a fan of his, what on earth was Renaults strategy with Hulkenberg? Pit him early so he’ll come out not far ahead of the leaders and will lose a lot of time letting them through? Great idea… Even though he had a bad start he could’ve got points with Palmers strategy…

    2. In what universe does Vandoorne get a penalty for costing Raikkonen probably just a couple of tenths under blue flags, but Perez gets nothing for literally defending position from Bottas and costing him a couple of seconds? Is it because Bottas just got on with it and didn’t whine down the radio? And then Perez costed Vettel half a second at the end of the race as well… With no penalty, whil Vandoorne gets a drive through for the tiniest thing… Which is then the same penalty as Kvyat gets for taking out 2 cars. Very strange stewarding.

    Also, rip Verstappen.

    1. Sviatoslav (@)
      9th July 2017, 14:52

      Is it because Bottas just got on with it and didn’t whine down the radio?

      – this.

    2. Agree with your 2nd point. Kimi’s whines have gone from funny to seriously annoying. And he’s costing Ferrari a lot of points in their battle with Mercedes.

      I hope Ferrari realizes this and let him go after this season. Vettel could be further away in the championship compared to Hamilton if Kimi could be at least in the same page as Seb. Only at Russia and Monaco Kimi seemed to be in the same pace as the other guys in the top 2 teams and even Ricciardo is helping Seb more than him.

      Considering how the race ended, just imagine what the result would be if Kimi had managed to slow down Bottas for more than 2 corners…

      1. @fer-no65 Indeed, Ferrari have little chance of winning the WCC with Kimi in car number 2.

      2. GtisBetter (@)
        9th July 2017, 15:51

        i got the idea that when hamilton undercut Kimi, ferrari just used him to try and block bottas

        1. @passingisoverrated yeah and it hardly worked because Kimi overcooked it at turn 3

        2. that was indeed the point, as as soon as bottas waved bye, kimi boxed… coincidence? i think not!

          ferrari are no stranger to dirty tricks, while yelling to divert attention to cover their tracks……

          1. My exact thoughts ……. surely it would have been better he beat Hamilton?

          2. Marian Gri (@)
            9th July 2017, 19:36

            Dirty tricks?!? You assume something based on what?? VET, is that you thinking HAM brake tested you?? If these are dirty tricks, maybe it’s time to watch something else, ’cause last race HAM was asking his team if they can order BOT to push VET into him!!!

      3. Not the first time the Ferrari strategic master plan have ruined Kimi’s race this year. That is a debate for another time perhaps but be realistic, you cant expect KR to perform miracles on tyres that are 40 laps old agianst Bottas with a brand new set of boots. Also not sure I share your confidence that Vettel will still be at Ferrari next season or even win the 2017 WDC.

        1. @highoctane I have my doubts as well, I think Hamilton will eventually catch him and build a gap until the end of the season. I’m not even sure if Vettel is even going to be 2nd in the champ, but we’ll see.

          As for Kimi, let’s be realistic too: he’s not close to Vettel either, even with new tyres.

        2. Marian Gri (@)
          9th July 2017, 19:46

          Let’s over this ridiculous stuff like Ferrari compromising his races. RAI was nowhere this season. And in 2014, 2015, 2016 too. End of the story. He lost places at the start, he couldn’t keep up with the front runners the entire race, no matter what tyres he had on his car. It’s the 4th consecutive season where he fails to deliver something memorable, how many excuses to find? I like him too, but it’s obvious he’s past his prime. It happened to others too, M.Schumacher was like almost completely dominated by Nico Rosberg.

    3. Well Perez actually cost Vettel more time, so it’s not like he’s not done Bottas a favor lol. If you are going to “whine” about penalties, try Bottas’ clumsy first turns that never get punished.

  2. Bottas is the real deal and has totally earned a contract extension. Do people still bother to disagree about that?

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      9th July 2017, 14:36

      He had some difficulties in the first couple races but he’s really coming into his own now.

      1. Just needs to watch out on his first lap clumsiness, next time he will get a penalty ( e.g. Baku, Barcelona). Rather see Bottas champion than the other two.

        1. Marian Gri (@)
          9th July 2017, 15:44

          Based on what kind of performance?!? BOT still is some way from champ material. If we think that in a Mercedes he finished just 6 seconds ahead of a RBR… it doesn’t look a like a great win at all. In that Mercedes I’m pretty sure even Massa, Stroll, Vandoorne, Kvyat could take few wins in a season.

          1. 15 points behind Hamilton even though he had a dnf 2 wins to ham 3

          2. @corrado-dub

            Even Vandoorne

            What does that mean? Vandoorne does not fit in the row you gave. It would be very sure he’d win races in a season with that Mercedes…

    2. @huhhii, yes I would disagree. He had more average races, poor races than great ones. The 2 times he won, he didn’t have a competition from his team mate. Ham came 7 seconds behind after having to start from 8th through almost no fault of his own. Even Bottas’ pole position was questionable after yellow flag in Q3. Bottas was almost gifted second in Baku and here he had the machinery to keep 1st. That was the biggest factor. For any Mercedes driver to stand out they have to do more than just come first. Bottas can barely win… Vet, Ric, Ver, Ham, Alo would take that car, pole position and probably win comfortably.

      1. @ivan-vinitskyy The way I see it only Chinese GP was weak one for Bottas. Other than that he’s been brilliant or at least solid in every other race. Wrong tire pressures stole a victory from him in Bahrain and in Spain he was a step behind others because of old engine (which then blew up later in the race). In a fair world Hamilton and Bottas would have equal amount of points by now.

  3. Guybrush Threepwood
    9th July 2017, 14:36

    Just realized that Ricciardo has earnt more points than any other driver over the last 5 races.

    1. Also he has been there to collect pieces whenever other drivers have fumbled. He does seem not to overdrive his car which has meant much better reliability compared to other cars using the same Renault PU.

      1. Agree. A bit of luck and race craft goes a long way. Certainly better than a one lap wonder approach.

      2. he has been super lucky and gifted for his patience… i dont see him try to kill his opponents intentionally or kamikaze dive that wont stick… other than that, he has not been great due to his car’s performance and reliability i guess… he has been the most well behaved driver/character in F1 so far… dont see him shove his frustration to others’ faces or cars…

    2. No, he is level on points with Vettel with 85 points, Vettel gets ahead on countback as he has two 2nd places.

    3. Sviatoslav (@)
      9th July 2017, 18:00

      Actually, Vettel and Ricciardo has both scored 85 points in the last five races. Hamilton has earned 78 points and Bottas only five points fewer (73). Only Kimi was underperforming (and unlucky) with only 34 points.

  4. Ferrari, Seb fan
    9th July 2017, 14:40

    God race from Bo77as, Vettel needed a few good laps at the middle of the race to win

  5. Thw STR drivers were very good again…sigh

  6. I know this is off topic for this race but would it make the race more interesting if pirelli mixed the tyre allocation up a bit more. For example, instead of the US, SS, and S for this race they made available the US, S and H, but making H tyre the mandatory race tyre. Would we see a more mixed strategic element to the race or just teams following each other on strategy?

    1. @rob8k Why? It’s just another superficial means to “spice up” the race (I also don’t like current system). And yes, teams will simply just calculate the optimal strategy and try to stick with it (aka Plan A).

      1. @sonicslv I don’t like the system either but I enjoy races where there are multiple strategies playing out. I guess I was just thinking that the top 10 would still likely qualify on the faster tyre but forcing them to use an unwanted harder compound might cause different strategy to play out, plus maybe teams outwith top 10 might try something different.

        I guess it wouldn’t make much difference and your right, it is superficial but would like to see it happen one race if there going to keep this system.

        1. @rob8k I think the problem is in F1 everything is calculated/simulated in real time and the computer just give you the optimal strategy. Since practically all variables are same for each team (eg tire option) it’s expected all of them will reach more or less the same conclusion. We even have every driver need to allocate tires they want to bring to each race and there’s not many varieties on what they bring. Even more, come the race day, pretty much every driver have identical set of tires left available to them.

          One other thing is, if the math (computer simulation) tells you that the optimal strategy is Plan A, does your average engineer want to risk his career to follow his heart or gut feeling and go for Plan B? I think only few people in F1 now that have his opinion is valued enough for the team to go against the optimal strategy.

          1. Jonathan Parkin
            9th July 2017, 17:49

            I was thinking the same thing. Because of the current trend of leaving nothing to chance the racing suffers because the team’s have covered every eventuality. Is it considered a backward step if we get rid of this and race strategy is something we have to do while the race is on without doing the homework before hand.

            Another thing that might spice up the racing is going back to choosing a set of tyres for qualifying and the race with drivers having the choice between the three compounds

          2. F1 became more of a statistics game so far, more data available, less deviation or errors happen unless someone at the pit screws up or another racer bump into you, or blocked you unnecessarily…

  7. Sviatoslav (@)
    9th July 2017, 14:51

    This win is quite similar to what Bottas did in russia.
    The only problem is that Bottas and Hamilton still can’t finish on podium in front of Ferrari.

    1. @sviat you mean like Canada?

      1. @fer-no65 No, I’m sure not.

        1. @davidnotcoulthard I’m prettysure he is refering to Hamilton and Bottas’ 1-2 in Canada

  8. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    9th July 2017, 14:53

    I think Bottas did very well. Had an incredible start and pulled away somewhat. His pit stop most certainly wasn’t the best. He lost at leased a second. Both Bottas and other drivers cost quite a bit of time with back markers but I wish the blue flag rules were less strict so I think what most drivers did was fair enough. Perez IMO was just a little bit unreasonable at times though. Bottas will probably be my driver of the weekend. Fastest in qualifying and kept Vettel behind when he was under threat towards the end.

  9. Good win for Bottas. A couple more laps and P1 and P3 would have been different. Interesting how much better the Ferraris held those tyres than did the Mercs. That might have some effect in Silverstone as well.

    1. @loup-garou I’m not sure about this, but maybe Bottas and Hamilton just got worse tire quality from the pool (by bad luck, not pointing fingers here). Bottas is on SS and he got pretty bad blister in the middle of right rear, which a pretty weird place for a blister and Hamilton even worse, his front left already blistering on 7th lap after he put on his new US. It might be the car or they pushing too hard but its still kinda weird to me.

    2. Marian Gri (@)
      9th July 2017, 15:58

      Let’s not exaggerate, HAM was setting FLs lap after lap with 30 laps old US and although he said his tyres are not that good anymore. Kinda weird to complain about performance/tyres when a driver is going faster and faster, no?! The step in the right direction was made already: the tyres are not exploding anymore. I don’t think that having tyres that last 100 laps without any degradation is a bright idea either.

    3. @loup-garou, catching someone vs overtaking someone are not the same things… see ham vs ric… just because vettel caught up with bot doesnt mean he will jump ahead. we have seen for more pressure on bottas from vet for far longer, and nothing happened… this truck is no BAKU with 100 mile straight to use DRS… Mercedes’s acceleration on short distances still greater let alone on straights! Vettel would need perfect exit, and super close drive to make any attempt, as straights are very short here!

  10. I feel like Kyvat is not long for this world. His performances are few and far between but his clumsiness and frustration shine. I’m not just talking about this year, but his whole career.

    1. Sorry, *Kvyat

      1. Kvyat will get promoted to Formula E.

    2. I agree.. he hasn’t shined at all, and too many down points. he wont be in f1 for long anymore. every driver in f1 is fast – whether they are 19 years old or 36 years old, but they need a continuous stream of high performance driving to stay in the sport, and Kvyat seems to be an A-minus driver instead of an A-grade driver at the moment.

  11. Have to agree with others about Perez and his stubbornness to respect blue flags, thus compromise others. Here’s hoping he’s in for some karma!

    1. How he avoided penalties whereas others didn’t is a true head-scratcher

  12. I like Bottas and if his start was legal I would not begrudge him his win especially after he did such a good job in standing up to the pressure of a charging Vettel but…
    those of us who have seen a few drag races and have seen drivers leave the line early generally know a “jump” when we see one and Bottas’ start certainly looked early.
    One can’t see the car move if it is close so one looks to see the tire roll and it looked to me as if Bottas’ tire rolled a bit before the lights went out.
    I know the steward said the start was reviewed and was proper but, I have no faith in most F1 stewards so … if someone has the ability to go through the recording which isolated Bottas’ car and the starting lights please take a look at those frames for the rest of us .

    1. They showed Bottas’ start on Cmore (Finnish broadcaster) after the race and his tires did roll a bit before the lights went out. However, that apparently isn’t what decides whether the start is a jump start in Formula One. They have a censor in the car which decides whether the start is legal and the car is allowed to move a bit (according to the commentators on Cmore).

    2. Sviatoslav (@)
      9th July 2017, 15:21

      This situation has nothing to do with stewards. There’s a sensor that indicates if the driver moved too early.
      I am pretty sure that the rules state that the car is prohibited to move before the green lights. Bottas reacted at the same time as the red lights turned off, so it took 0.201 sec for the car to start moving. So the Finn legally moved when green was on.

      1. ah… no… if the car moved before the red light went off (as proven on camera), then obvioulsly Bottas did not react to the lights, but reacted before the lights went green.

      2. His movement was in the s

      3. His movement was in the same frame as the lights. In other words, had he been .001 (or .002 quicker

        1. Sviatoslav (@)
          9th July 2017, 18:12

          @sjzelli – It doesn’t matter. What matters is did the car move beforehand from its initial position or not? If didn’t, therefore no jump start and no penalty.

          1. It did, but that is not what would have made it a jump start. Do you recall when a driver reversed while the lights were on? That driver did not get a penalty. Movement within the box is not against the rules.

        2. I doubt there are 500fps, unless it was super slo-mo :p
          probably within the same 0.017s-0.020s.

    3. @rikdi. Do you suggest you can judge better than F1 Stewards? Much like football or rugby, sometimes you have to rely on the “expert” on the spot whether or not you agree with them. To imply otherwise is to doubt the integrity of the entire system, and if you doubt that, then surely you’re wasting your time watching F1.

  13. One thing I can not believe is how moody Hamilton is! at the last race, he tried to play mind games, saying Ferrari are under pressure, saying it showed by Vettel running into him… yet it seems Vettel was so much more headstrong this weekend.. yesterdays cold face interview after qualifying from Hamilton, and cold reaction to being asked to shake hands with Vettel (he could have laughed it off), and today, starting 8th he finished 4th, he should be so grateful!! instead I watched his interview post race on sky sports… he comes across as the worst sportsman when he isn’t winning, such a sulk! I notice he only thanks his team for the effort when he is winning, and when he comes 4th, NO COMMENT on the teams efforts. contrast this to Valentino Rossi last week when he finished 5th or so in a motogp race, and was so grateful and excited to score some points – knowing it was the best he could do on the day. makes you wonder…

    1. Why does no other driver get scrutinised as much as Hamilton? So many drivers complain and complain and complain and no one cares, it is ALWAYS whoever said it. I would argue that Vettel has been a child this season. What about Alonso? Bad mouthing over the radio, obviously that doesn’t matter because the car is crap right? Wrong. Double standards people.

      It seems he does not like how the Vettel incident played out. Vettel ended up further ahead, then compound that with the knowledge you’re going to take a 5 place penalty at the next race. “He should be grateful” Why? Grateful for what? Having a good car? It doesn’t work like that, he has earned his place to be in that car, it’s a mutual agreement.

    2. Personally I don’t think Hamilton has anything to gain by playing mind-games with Vettel. After all Vettel has won every single Championship where he’s been in contention often by a very small margin. There definitely is a case to be made that Vettel performs better when the stakes are high.
      But by all means, if Hamilton wants to play that game it’s ok. It’s part of F1 and has been going on for decades.

      1. Exactly this Vettel has no time for games get in the car, drive and go home.

        He sulked all weekend.

    3. They did shake hands during ‘that interview’ before the excited MC got into a frenzy.

      1. So? He still ended it like a petulant child.

    4. Lol at Vettel so headstrong this weekend :) 6.5 secs ahead of Ham who started from 8th… at one point he was 15+ secs behind… with his headstrong race, he finished where he started… indeed very strong…

      “knowing it was the best he could do on the day.” did he make he will do magic today before the race?

      https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/headlines/2017/7/hamilton–race-will-be-about-damage-limitation.html

      keep wondering… mate… you are alone in your thinking like vettel always thinks he is right and is the victim…

  14. Vandorne gets 2 penalty points for, what is at best, a minor annoyance – letting the leaders by 2 corners too late, while Vettel gets just 3 points for ramming someone TWICE UNDER THE SC, and one of those two hits was INTENTIONAL!
    If Vandorne earned 2 points for his “offence”, Vettel deserved at least 10 for what he did in Baku.

    1. Your forgetting the FIA rule……
      Red car…….take penalty and then half it, any other car double it

    2. Vandoorne ignored blue flags for two LAPS not two corners

  15. That was a world class start by Bottas! He showed a lot of poise under pressure. As someone noted earlier, he needed a good end of his first stint and the beginning of the second stint. Unfortunately, he waited too long to start his push for a potential overtake. My guess would be that his tires were as bad in terms of deg as everybody else’s. I am impressed with Grosjean. Not only is he performing above and beyond, he also seems to have found a way to deal with his brake-phobia.

  16. mark jackson
    9th July 2017, 16:08

    Regardless of his gearbox penalty, he qualified 3rd, struggled with the car during the race, and would have likely finished 3rd in the race. He finished 4th today with 3rd up for grabs had he tried harder. Lewis would have lost out to Vettel today in the championship, regardless of his penalty. It’s the typical sulky, moody, inconsistent, sore loser, playing the victim card Hamilton we’re all use to seeing. I hope he’s still grumpy at next week’s race and goof’s it again.

  17. AJ (@fifthlion)
    9th July 2017, 16:39

    And yet there were those saying that Merc would use Bottas unfairly to hold up the Ferrari’s yet it’s clear they effectively sabotaged kimi’s race to try and hold Bottas!

    1. @fifthlion

      And yet there were those saying that Merc would use Bottas unfairly to hold up the Ferrari’s

      And Catalunya was less unfair than Austria because?

      1. Michael Brown (@)
        9th July 2017, 19:34

        @davidnotcoulthard Don’t jump the gun, he never mentioned Catalunya

        1. @mbr-9 Why else use “would” though? (or so I thought, anyway!)

    2. Hamilton used an undercut, raikonnen had no answer, so Ferrari made the logical decision to try block Bottas because they knew Kimi wasn’t gonna get better than 5th.

  18. At what point do RBR think of demoting MaxVER back to toro rosso and give Carlos a go in a top car?

    1. I think that moment will come after the point they give Max a working car.

      His car would’ve retired today with clutch issues if it wasn’t for the Kvyat action

      1. The kid is mechanically over-driving his car. He continues to drive like he is in F3. Buy a Premium F1 pass and watch his car.
        The only thing he needs is a big crash or a race ban to put him with both feet on the ground although I do agree he is can be a great driver is he keeps his head together.

        1. Clutch was broken before the start according to RB engineer

        2. Well according to Max, Horner and Ricciardo the overdriving story is not true.

          But maybe you know it better

    2. Indeed, red bull have NOTHING to complain about verstappen, in an ideal world without mechanical failures, verstappen would’ve got 2nd in canada, yes, he could keep bottas behind and also 2nd in baku, hamilton would’ve won cause there wouldn’t have been his headrest problem either. This would’ve also let ricciardo slip back to 3rd in baku and 4th in canada, not to mention the brake issue earlier on.

      And yes, as he said, it’s not to exclude he’d have retired anyway in austria due to the clutch.

      Verstappen proved generally superior to ricciardo this year, reliability has just been horrible and let’s say first lap accidents didn’t help either, generally through bad luck, as I don’t recall him being responsible in spain or in austria at least.

    3. Michael Brown (@)
      9th July 2017, 19:35

      It was Verstappen who crashed into Alonso after all…

      1. ??? Did you even watch the race?

  19. Keith – What about including stats about the fastest start reaction in f1 (I know this would be difficult)

  20. Sebastian Vettel needs to realise you cannot moan, whinge, grumble and complain his way to the championship …

    … either that or he’s got a bad case of Mansellitis.

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