Modest score for underwhelming Austrian GP

2017 Austrian Grand Prix Rate the Race result

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If Baku gave us a soap opera the Red Bull Ring produced a more pure race, albeit one which failed to deliver much in terms of drama.

The final laps of the race were undoubtedly tense as Sebastian Vettel hunted down Valtteri Bottas and the other Mercedes closed on the podium. But neither really ignited into a true battle.

The Austrian Grand Prix was rated 5.8 out of ten by F1 Fanatic readers. That’s not the worst score a race has had this year, but it’s a long way from the best. Here’s what you said about it:

Just a plum average race. Couple of OK overtakes, bit of interesting strategy being played out. But no one will be taking about this race a few weeks from now. It wasn’t switch it off or fall asleep poor.
Philip (@Philipgb)

This was just one of those races that could or should have been exciting. However, the weather stayed dry, there was not much room for strategic battles, there were no Safety Cars and the cars spent almost all of the race in their deserved positions so some 90% of the race was basically a procession. Still, the start was nice and the last couple of laps were really tense; there was a real battle for the top positions, which is never a given. It’s all good.
@Girts

I thought it was alright, not much battling for most of the race but the cars looked on the limit at least, and some different strategies.
@George

The intrusive trackside advertising was not popular:

Just want to mention the track advertising. I found it extremely distracting with that massive beer bottle flying across the screen. Credit to them, it was very effective advertising but extremely annoying. The position of the cameras made it look like there were beer bottles racing on track. The little action there was was easy to miss today but maybe it was just me.
@Brawngp

But some wanted to see the race go on longer:

Why does it always seem like a race should have had 3-5 more laps?

The ending built up to a thrill, but prior to that it was a bit of a bore. That said, I did enjoy a nice clean race with no Safety Car interruptions (unlike Baku, which while flashy, got a bit annoying).

Good recovery by Williams too, despite the retirements of others they also made up places on their own.
@Phylyp

I think this race was one of the better races from the last couple of years. While I agree that the first portion was not that action packed, you always had the sense that it was building towards something.

This was the first race I can remember in a long time that the director didn’t know where to focus in the final laps because there where two great battles happening.

It just goes to show that you don’t need passing to have an exciting race that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
@Macca

Rate the Race: The Twitter verdict

2017 Rate the Race Results

RaceAverage score
2017 Australian Grand Prix6.408
2017 Chinese Grand Prix7.534
2017 Bahrain Grand Prix7.957
2017 Russian Grand Prix4.900
2017 Spanish Grand Prix7.869
2017 Monaco Grand Prix4.936
2017 Canadian Grand Prix7.545
2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix8.790
2017 Austrian Grand Prix5.821

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2017 Austrian Grand Prix

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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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7 comments on “Modest score for underwhelming Austrian GP”

  1. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
    14th July 2017, 16:30

    Second-lowest and underachieving. This season is mixed.

  2. With 5 races above 7,5 out of 9 races we shouldn’t complain.

    1. We shouldn’t complain, we should vote better.

      7.5 means a great race. Not perfect, but really good. Look at that “Top 10 worst races” list here, #10 is a 4.9, which is practically the definition of an average race. You see a 9.5 race every decade or so, an eight maybe once a season.

      Austria was a three, at best.

  3. As I missed the live broadcast, went back and looked at the recording.
    What was interesting, unfortunately NOT the race …. was that the order for the top 10 on lap 9 was identical to the final result save for Lewis and Kimi changing places. There may have been position swaps due to pit stops and what-ever, but they could have stopped it on lap 9 and not much would have changed.
    Guess I didn’t miss much in the first place.

  4. Maybe the scores would have been different if there had been another lap.

  5. I really wonder what people actually want in a race.

    It was patently obvious from fairly early on that there was going to be a number of really close battles at or near the end, which meant that there were going to be some good mini battles and overtakes needed by those chasing to get there.

    For me it was a great race that had me interested right from the start. I’m struggling to see what more needs to occur before people say “what a great race”.

    1. I’ve explained it before, but I’ll do it again ;-)

      Look for example at the Tour de France.
      So far we’ve had many sprint stages. A small group of riders go in the break away. With 40 km to go the sprint teams gather, catch the break away, there’s some hectic battles for position and then there’s a sprint. These stages are called boring and predictable by almost everyone. Maybe the last km is spectacular, but it’s a waste of time to watch the first 6 hours of the race.

      Then there are the mountain stages, last weekend and yesterday. There are a lot of things happening all the time. Different strategies being played out, constant changes of position, a lot of unpredictable developments. Riders dropping back and recovering, unexpected names in the lead, etc. These stages are called highly exciting by almost everyone and they are a joy to watch from beginning to end, even if it may take six hours to do so.

      The Austrian GP is obviously like the former. Frankly, due to the regulation changes of 2017 with regards to aero and tyres, most races this year will be like a TdF sprint stage. We really need the weather (China), an inconveniently timed Safety Car (Bahrain), extremely abbrasive tarmac (Spain) or many drivers collectively screwing up (Baku) to make a race somewhat like a TdF mountain stage.

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