Vote for your 2017 Austrian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend

2017 Austrian Grand Prix

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Which Formula One driver made the most of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend?

It’s time to give your verdict on which driver did the best with the equipment at their disposal over the last few days.

Review how each driver got on below and vote for who impressed you the most at Red Bull Ring.

Driver performance summary

Driver Started Finished Race change Lap 1 change Highest position Lowest position Gap to team mate*
Lewis Hamilton 8 4 +4 +1 4 7 7.43
Valtteri Bottas 1 1 0 0 1 2 -7.43
Daniel Ricciardo 4 3 +1 +1 3 4
Max Verstappen 5
Sebastian Vettel 2 2 0 0 2 3 -19.712
Kimi Raikkonen 3 5 -2 -2 1 5 19.712
Sergio Perez 7 7 0 +1 6 9 -7.414
Esteban Ocon 9 8 +1 +1 6 9 7.414
Felipe Massa 17 9 +8 +7 6 10 -18.023
Lance Stroll 18 10 +8 +7 10 11 18.023
Fernando Alonso 12 -7 19 19
Stoffel Vandoorne 13 12 +1 -1 12 15
Carlos Sainz Jnr 10 +1 9 15
Daniil Kvyat 14 16 -2 -4 16 18
Romain Grosjean 6 6 0 +2 4 8
Kevin Magnussen 15 +2 11 16
Nico Hulkenberg 11 13 -2 -4 13 17 25.776
Jolyon Palmer 16 11 +5 +4 11 13 -25.776
Marcus Ericsson 19 15 +4 +3 14 17 Not on same lap
Pascal Wehrlein 20 14 +6 +3 13 17 Not on same lap

    Vote for your driver of the weekend

    Which driver do you think did the best job throughout the race weekend?

    Who got the most out of their car in qualifying and the race? Who put their team mate in the shade?

    Cast your vote below and explain why you chose the driver you picked in the comments.

    Who was the best driver of the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix weekend?

    • No opinion (1%)
    • Pascal Wehrlein (0%)
    • Marcus Ericsson (0%)
    • Jolyon Palmer (0%)
    • Nico Hulkenberg (0%)
    • Kevin Magnussen (0%)
    • Romain Grosjean (18%)
    • Daniil Kvyat (0%)
    • Carlos Sainz Jnr (0%)
    • Stoffel Vandoorne (0%)
    • Fernando Alonso (0%)
    • Lance Stroll (1%)
    • Felipe Massa (2%)
    • Esteban Ocon (0%)
    • Sergio Perez (1%)
    • Kimi Raikkonen (0%)
    • Sebastian Vettel (6%)
    • Max Verstappen (0%)
    • Daniel Ricciardo (18%)
    • Valtteri Bottas (47%)
    • Lewis Hamilton (2%)

    Total Voters: 413

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    Author information

    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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    80 comments on “Vote for your 2017 Austrian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend”

    1. For me Grosjean, otherwise…
      Bottas. Pole and race win in the best car.

      1. I also voted for Romain as this is a rare opportunity to vote for him with a clear conscience. Could of voted for Valtteri or Lance or Phillipe M. as well. Thanks, Racer Norriski

        1. who is Phillipe?

          1. He might mean Felipe Massa

          2. @alfa145 it is the posh version of Felipe Massa. Phillipe Pasta

      2. Agree. I went with grosjean as well. With Bottas in a close 2nd and Ricciardo in 3rd

    2. Massa come on. another great drive from him. Yes, I know he is widely hated by F1 Fanatic but credit where its due

      1. I’ve never gotten the impression that Massa is hated

        1. Na he isn’t at all Dom he’s my favourite driver but the F1 Fanatic admin have something against him

        2. You are referring to the most underrated racer on the grid that has occupied a seat too long….right?

          1. He is old and slow. Stroll as a team mate could make anyone look fast.

      2. I know he is widely hated by F1 Fanatic

        False statement mate.

        another great drive from him

        All he and stroll did was avoid the first lap incident. He should have overtook ocon with fresher ultrasoft tyres whilst ocon was on supersofts, but he didn’t. That is by no means a great drive. Williams was supposed to challenge SFI on this track. But they were no where near. Haas did a better job than Williams IMO.

        1. To be honest I haven’t watched the race yet so I’m not sure but based on what I’ve read, 17th to 9th and 20 seconds ahead of your team mate is a good days work. I agree though Grosjean was great, hes a nice guy and its good to see him happy again

          1. Do watch the race. Williams did well today after their quali debacle but Bottas, Vettel, Grosjean, Ricciardo were better performers than both Massa and Stroll.

            1. Ric without a doubt, great move on kimi and held off lewis in a car that was not at the same level of merc and ferrari..great drive and management.

          2. Struggle to see how you can comment on who was Driver of the Day/Weekend without having watched the race!?

        2. Actually yeah if you’re thinking driver of the weekend not day then surely it has to be grosjean or bottas

        3. Sundar Srinivas Harish
          9th July 2017, 23:30

          To be fair to Massa, he had to give way to the top 4 drivers in quick succession. He was basically blue flagged throughout the last 7-10 laps.

      3. I was very surprised to read this comment. I thought Phillipe Masa was loved by all especially when he was mistreated by Ferrari….. Thanks, Racer Norriski

        1. Sheridan Repton
          9th July 2017, 22:17

          I dislike him, he whinges about everyone else, always has done. If he does something wrong he never owns up to it, it is always someone else.

          His stock move is to stick his hand up in the car to show his disgust…

          I wish he had retired last season, let some young talent come through the ranks.

          1. Are you talking about Hamilton or Massa?

    3. Between Bottas and Grosjean for me, voted Bottas as he got pole and held off a charging Vettel without cracking under pressure.

    4. Bottas did an jumpstar but FIA doesn’t have the correct rules so you can fall into the right start. tip FIA make sure you use differant starters so the can’t do that.

      So i went for Grosjean.

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        9th July 2017, 16:34

        I can’t stand the amount of people stating that bottas did a jump start. They looked into it to examin if he did. They found that he had a 0.2 second response. So he didn’t jump start or break any rules no matter what people think they were seeing. Whoever investigates this has far more evidence than we will see and they decided and proved that he didn’t

        1. Sheridan Repton
          9th July 2017, 22:18

          I fully agree with you, it was not a jump start.

          I was concerned though, his car is silver and not red so I did think a penalty was coming his way.

          1. When was the last time a silver car even got a penalty? You have to go back to Rosberg times. Not that they haven’t gotten away with stuff that got others penalties in the same race in the meantime….

            1. Hamilton, gearbox change, Austria 2017?

        2. Who the hell came up with 0.2 sec response time I don’t know. Kind of points out how some of the press is making up things in their reports I guess. Bottas is not reacting at his start, he’s preempting. It’s clear to see on board, he drops the clutch before the lights go out, his car starts moving before too. But the race steward said that it was only 0.003 sec before the lights went out, so they allowed it. Apparently you are allowed to jumpstart by 0.01 sec.

          1. It’s not that you can jump start but that you are allowed to move 20 cm on the grid this is to allow for clutch slip.

          2. The stewards came up with the 0.2s reaction time from the telemetry data. The car is allowed a slight amount of movement before the lights go out and this is what was seen. However the actual clutch release and start was with a reaction time of 0.2s.

          3. Vettel had 0.3 s reaction time and he was able to see Bottas jumpstart. Tell me how it’s possible?

            How can you observe someone and still have 0.3s reaction time? you have to have 4 eyes for that.

            Did you watch Sky analyse after the race? I did.

          4. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
            10th July 2017, 17:22

            The 0.2 second responce was frrom the sensors on the grid. And that measured that Bottas’s responce time that was within the rules. Bottas dind’t move forward fast enough to trigger the sensors to catch him out too early. The sensors will be the same for ever single grid so every single driver will have got away with it if they did exactly what Bottas did. on any other occations. There was one race in 2014 where Hamilton’s responce time to the lights going out was under 0.010 seconds. The rules say that it is a massive risk the drivers are taking, as it is assuming when they will go out. But Bottas clearly wasn’t breaking the rules as they investigated it no further.

        3. you are misinformed, I’m afraid. Bottas did not break the rules, therefore technically he did not perform what in the rules is referred to as a jump start, but he DID actually started to move before the lights went off. The fact that under incredibly rare conditions this is not forbidden doesn’t take away from the fact that he started before the lights went off.

      2. FIA make sure you use differant starters so the can’t do that

        What?, and violate their own regulations?

        36.9 When the cars come back to the grid at the end of the formation lap (or laps, see Article
        39.16), they will stop within their respective grid positions, keeping their engines running.
        There will be a standing start, the signal being given by means of lights activated by the
        permanent starter.
        Once all the cars have come to a halt the five second light will appear followed by the four,
        three, two and one second lights. At any time after the one second light appears, the race will
        be started by extinguishing all red lights

        1. He is believing all that nonsense the sky commentators were spouting during the race about some minimum reaction times and drivers not allowed to predict the starts. In reality if your car moves 0.001s after the green you are ok. The sky commentators were just inventing stuff hoping it would gain lewis a position.

    5. Adam (@rocketpanda)
      9th July 2017, 16:37

      Bottas.

      Excellent qualifying and looked pretty comfortable out front until the last three or so laps. Was in charge and looked like he deserved to be there. Funny watching him getting chased by Ricciardo’s shoey on the podium though.

    6. I should be voting Massa, but we were tipped, by both Williams drivers, that they’d do much better during the race than during quali, because their tires would get better once being reasonably-well heated. Both Massa and Stroll had a great start though; still, Massa being 0.25s/lap faster than Stroll is probably not a basis for DOTW.

      So it’s pretty much a coinflip between Bottas for his “could not be more perfect” start and Grosjean for being ahead of the FI (and a very good start too). Went with Bottas since at least has some kind of fight for his position (and was the Pole sitter/Race Winner).

    7. Bottas. Grosjean also did well but Magnussen seemed to have good pace and was matching/outperforming Grosjean when he didn’t have problems with his car. So I think Grosjean scored good points because the car suited the track, not because the driver did something extraordinary. Massa had a great race, but I expected more from him in qualifying. Others weren’t even close to Bottas’ level.

      1. Sundar Srinivas Harish
        9th July 2017, 23:34

        Aye, it was such a shame the Magnussen didn’t manage to qualify or finish in his deserved position. He’d be DOTW for sure if the car didn’t conk off on him.

    8. I went for Grosjean. A calm display to cap off 5 races in a row in the points. Then the top 5 drivers except kimi, who shouldn’t struggle so far behind his team mate really.

    9. Ricciardo. After the recent bad form in qualifying, he beat Verstappen yesterday and in the race he overtook Kimi who has a much better car and managed to defend succesfully against Hamilton. Even the gap to Bottas was only 6 seconds at the end and this track doesn’t suit the Red Bull car on paper. But Bottas and Grosjean had very good weekends too and after the terrible qualifying session it was a nice recovery from the Williams drivers.

    10. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
      9th July 2017, 17:37

      Valtteri Bottas

    11. Voted for Ricciardo. This is another race which proved that he has a cool head and makes the best of the situation and conditions. The Red Bull was clearly slower than the Mercedes and Ferraris but Ricciardo kept to the racing line more than most and defended his position from Hamilton very well. That is why he is a great driver, much better overall than his impulsive young teammate who manages to be in the wrong place every time.

      1. Great comment.

        I think it is a bit rich that MaxVer is scoping out a Ferrari drive (if the reports are true) when be can’t even complete a race because he keeps on destroying his red bull. If he had performed in Austria qualifying he wouldn’t be dicing with kamikaze kvyatt. That never ends well.

        If I was Carlos I’d be asking Dr Marko to ditch Max. If Max ain’t happy at RBR then he can go back to torro rosso for the rest of the season and then in 2018 onto the heady heights of Mini and Moke racing and beyond. The bloody cheek!!!!

        1. The problem with Mad Max is that with his style of driving he manages to be in the wrong place at the wrong time even when the ensuing incident is not his fault. He only knows the gung-ho approach and while it may work occasionally, it will not most of the time given the race variables. Max gives the impression that he just goes for it without regard for the bigger picture, whereas Ricciardo is more of a thinking driver. The latter seems to consider the overall situation realistically and aims to be in the best possible position of the race that he is currently driving. That is the reason that he keeps getting those podiums. Ricciardo is not any luckier than the average F1 driver and neither is Verstappen that unlucky. It is just they way they drive and fit into the field.

          1. @loup-garou While I agree that Ricciardo drove a stunning race, I don’t think your Max criticism is quite right. His clutch was broken even before the start, so therefore he had a poor getaway, and then Kvyat out-braked himself. Nothing he could have done to prevent this. Besides, it wasn’t the contact that ended his race, but the faulty clutch. An aggressive driver may ruin his tires, but not his clutch or engine.

            Also the Ferrari rumor was likely brought up by Sainz himself, who told the press that he would be driving either Red Bull or another team next year, much to the annoyance of the Red Bull team bosses.

            1. I don’t think your Max criticism is quite right. His clutch was broken even before the start, so therefore he had a poor getaway, and then Kvyat out-braked himself. Nothing he could have done to prevent this. Besides, it wasn’t the contact that ended his race, but the faulty clutch.

              I agree with all that…for this race. But at the end of the day I believe that Mad Max’s over-aggressive driving style is causing him grief by one way or another. He “goes for it” without apparently considering the consequences and while this may seem “cool” to some, it is not going to help him in the long run.

              I think Max Verstappen has a major accident coming around some bend in the not too distant future. I know that it is not a nice thing to say, but there is that gut feeling.

            2. I agree @loup-garou, l have followed f1 for over 40 years and cannot remember driver like him including senna and schu…Max could easily rewrite the F1 record books with his amazing talent.. though he could also have a massive shunt while he is maturing, lets hope not!!! I look forward to watching his career.

          2. @loup-garou

            What utter nonsense. Say what you will about Verstappens start but his DNF was again not his fault. There is no overdriving, there is no aggressive attitude that leads to bla bla bla. Verstappen is just faster than Ricciardo but has had the short straw on reliability now. Or are you gonna say Ricciardo didn’t treat his car properly in Australia and Russia?

          3. @loup-garou

            Here is a list of all the technical failures Max had this season:

            China: Q1 engine failure
            Bahrein: Race brake failure
            Russia: Q3 floor issue; Race engine needed to be changed before race
            Canada: FP2 engine failure; Race battery failure
            Baku: FP3 hydraulic faillure; Q2 engine issue; Q3 gearsync issue; Race oil pressure failure
            Austria: FP2 brake failure; Race clutch failure

            I might have missed it, so can you please explain how Max made these things happen

            1. Personally I think Max is a stunning driver, with a very good calculating mindset able to extract the most from his car, whilst keeping enough in reserve to recover should things go pear shaped (Brazil 2016, saving a spin that could easily have been racing ending). A refreshing young blood who has skill, determination.

              His issues this season have largely centred around PU issues yet again, Nothing to do with overdriving his car and driving attitude.

    12. Bottas, Grosjean, Perez

    13. Grosjean. Also Vettel and Ricciardo have a good weekend.
      Bottas must be penalized..

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        9th July 2017, 21:19

        You must really hate Bottas. Hamilton has got away with an even quicker reaction of 0.005 seconds in the past.

        https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/drivers-allowed-to-gamble-at-race-start-whiting/

        And the FIA have released a very good explanation as to why they didn’t punish Bottas. As what he did was within the rules. He just made a brilliant start. Just read this: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bottas-start-penalty-austria-fia-928763/

        1. Bottas did the best start of any of the front running cars this year in Austria. He is Driver of the Weekend material.

      2. Didn’t you vote Vettel driver of the weekend in Baku? I think that sums it up really.

      3. @jorge-lardone

        Must really hurt that he didn’t get that penalty.. Even though Vettel and all his fans knew about jumpstart

    14. Bottas, Vettel and Grosjean in that order for me.

    15. Stroll. Bottas, Grojean etc didn’t really surprise me with their performances. But Stroll has gone from people questioning whether he should be in F1, to gaining 8 positions and finishing in the points….AGAIN!

      1. 20 szcs behind his team mate though

    16. My vote goes to Grosjean. Absolutely perfect result both in qualy and race. Perfect performance!

      Bottas a very very close second. Great weekends also for SV, DR and SP

    17. Max! He really is living up to the hype!

    18. Who else voted Jolyon?

    19. Another victory Bottas is deserving of credit for without Hamilton’s relative performance being able to be blamed on outright issues. Hamilton had a grid penalty to suffer but Bottas didn’t rest back and accept a gifted result, he beat him in qualifying. He then gave a perfect race start and managed his race inch perfectly to win against a seemingly faster Vettel.

      Did Hamilton have more outright speed and was Bottas lucky the race wasn’t 1 lap longer or did he deliver a victory in the slowest time possible?

      For all the bluster of Hamilton’s father about him ending careers, Bottas is delivering a very credible season up against him, and best of all he doesn’t fool around drinking his champagne from a sweaty boot, he necks it from the bottle like a real champ.

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        10th July 2017, 3:02

        @philipgb well the fact that Bottas is close to Lewis has nothing to do with Bottas or with Lewis…

        Lewis should have won a few more races this season than he has but he’s had a massive issue and it’s not Vettel – starts with M and ends with S…. They are costing him more points than Vettel is gaining from his own team…

        1. @freelittlebirds

          Really? We’re still running the narrative that Mercedes are costing Hamilton points? An unfortunate incident with the head rest and a single gearbox penalty hardly fits the narrative of the team costing him points. Hamilton has lost more points himself if you factor Russia and Monaco into the current points tally.

          Let’s just be objective about the season so far. Ferrari started as the better team, but Mercedes are closing them down quickly. Vettel has been the more consistent driver than Hamilton, though Hamilton has had some flashes of pure brilliance, and Bottas is where he is thanks to two victories he wholly deserves the credit for. Both races he beat Hamilton on Merit.

          I’m a Hamilton supporter, but he have to be realistic here that if his own performance was more consistent he’d be leading the championship on his own merit rather than it being the team’s fault he isn’t.

    20. Ricciardo being overlooked once again I see.

      His weekend was faultless. Out qualified his team mate and put the car as high on the grid as was possible. Then drove an absolute stunning race to keep Hamilton behind and bring home another podium.

      I don’t know how other people feel, but I think 99.9% of drivers would have been passed by Hamilton with the move he made into turn 4 on the second last lap. Outstanding piece of defensive driving.

      1. Ricardo has driven a stunning weekend and I agree, that most of the drivers on the grid would have lost out to Hamilton on the attempted T4 pass, not only did he hold him off then, but, also in the next lap (final lap) too. Sadly his stats really do not reflect his ability, had it been the V8 era still, I am pretty sure he would have taken a WDC by now.

    21. Bottas’ had the best start of the last ten years!

    22. Bottas and Grosjean were the top drivers. If it was driver if the day Massa and stroll could also have been considered.

    23. I don’t understand people who spend their precious vote to give Kvyat even 1%. I can barely understand 1% sympathy votes Ericsson was getting last year, but this race with Kvyat? He was poor in qualy, was out of the race in the first corner and ruined everything for Verstappen and Alonso, which likely made the race much less entertaining.

    24. Lewis Senna..GOAT.

    25. Urvaksh (@thedoctor03)
      10th July 2017, 6:17

      Grojean deserves this. No complaints, cool as a cucumber, stuck the car 7th (6th after Lewis’ penalty) on the grid and raced it to a brilliant 6th. As he himself put it, he won’t the GP Part 2. Only difference being, he beat his nearest challenger far more convincingly than Bottas did.

    26. I give it to Bottas. Very steady performance and win.

      GRO and RIC were also great. I expected more from HAM, I’d expected him to to be all over RIC right after he went to the US tyres.

      And Max….. how much technical failure can you get on your side of the garage??? He actually did something wrong this time: he messed up his Q3 runs. I really get the feeling he will be the driver of the 2nd half of the season.

    27. I really don’t see what is so special about someone in the fastest car starting in front and just… driving.
      Bottas didn’t even have a great qualifying lap. He made a few mistakes and was lucky that others were also having an off day.

      For me it’s either Ricciardo or Grosjean. Ricciardo got a great start, passed Kimi into T3, then Grosjean into T4 and then held Hamilton off and kept great pace with those around him. Grosjean did very well to maximise his points and drove a collected race.

      1. I think Bottas did pretty well to be honest, I think the Ferrari is on par in race trim, so to keep Vettel at a safe distance pretty much the whole race was a good achievement.

        However, I agree with you on Ricciardo. He was driver of the weekend (despite at times during qualifying looking slower than Max), but I think when your teammate goes out so early it makes it more difficult to make an informed comparison – hence the lowish % perhaps.

    28. Ooops, subconsciously voted Bottas instead of Grosjean.

    29. Ben (@chookie6018)
      10th July 2017, 18:55

      I voted grosjean and thought he and Bottas wee the two stars.
      I havent checked the stats but I feel like Riccardo has been in the top 3 for voting for DOTW 4 races straight, which really would be an incredible stat.

    30. My vote for driver of the weekend was between Bottas and Grosjean.

      Bottas was quickest in qualifying to take pole, and was dominant in the race, although his tyre problems meant Vettel closed up a lot at the end.

      During the race I thought that Mercedes should have brought Bottas in for his only stop as soon as all the other leading cars had pitted just to cover them, it was then stated in commentary that Vettel had reduced Bottas’s lead significantly by the time he did make his stop which I thought showed they should have brought him in earlier, but considering the state of his tyres at the end of the race it was probably better to leave him out on his first set as long as they did.

      Grosjean was best of the rest behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in both the qualifying and the race, I didn’t notice him much during the race highlights but he seemed to have a good clean race to finish sixth for Haas’s best result of the season.

      I the end it was a close decision but I voted for Grosjean.

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