Fresh from winning an ultra-competitive 2018 Formula 2 championship, Mercedes prospect George Russell had to endure 60 grands prix of toil and hard graft for Williams before joining the factory team alongside the sport’s most successful ever driver in 2022.
But no matter how brave a face has put on over his first 29 months as a Mercedes driver, Russell would never have expected his first 55 rounds racing for the multiple world champions to yield just a solitary victory.Returning to the Red Bull Ring for round 11 of the 2024 season, Mercedes were also marking a year since McLaren demoted them to being the second-fastest Mercedes-powered team on the grid. And though Mercedes and Ferrari have whittled down much of Red Bull’s advantage over them across the previous season, McLaren remain ahead of them both. Now, McLaren are the ones who share top billing for each grand prix with Max Verstappen, with Mercedes still only playing a supporting role at best.
A week prior in Barcelona, Russell had enjoyed a brief cameo appearance out front by sweeping by Verstappen and Lando Norris at the start. But two laps in the lead were all he got before Verstappen wrested the spotlight away from him. This time, Russell was again on the second row behind the two championship leaders, only one place higher on the grid in third, thanks to Oscar Piastri’s penalty for exceeding track limits.
Saturday’s sprint race suggested McLaren could fight the world champion – but that winning that fight might be beyond them. Especially around a circuit that has been a Verstappen stronghold for so many seasons.
Verstappen had successfully repelled both McLarens at the start of the sprint race and the grand prix was no different. Almost as if to test drivers’ discipline under the recently rewritten jump start rules, the five lights on the starting gantry were held for almost four seconds before the race finally began. When it did, Verstappen left the grid cleanly with Norris unable to put him under any kind of pressure on the run to the first right-hander. Russell tried to look to the outside of the McLaren entering the braking zone, but Norris held firm.
Behind, Charles Leclerc found himself caught between Sergio Perez to his right and Oscar Piastri to his left. He clipped the McLaren’s right-rear wheel, but damaged his front wing in the process which forced him to pit for a new front wing at the end of the opening lap, effectively ruining his race.
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Russell’s wide line out of turn one allowed him to tuck up behind Norris all the way up to turn three. When Norris went right, Russell went left, but Norris was later on the brakes and held the Mercedes to the outside to keep the place. At turn four, Perez and Piastri found themselves side-by-side again, but this time they made contact. Piastri’s punishment was temporary – briefly losing a place to Leclerc – but Perez’s was permanent. The Red Bull was left with a gaping hole in his left-hand sidepod that compromised his race pace across the remaining 71 laps.
Running behind a wounded Red Bull in seventh, Piastri had damage concerns of his own. Engineer Tom Stallard warned him he had “some rear damage” to the car after the knock from Leclerc at turn one, but that he ultimately had “no significant performance loss” as a result.
On lap seven, the McLaren driver managed to draw alongside the Red Bull on the exit of turn four before hanging around the outside of turn six to gain sixth while successfully avoiding falling foul of track limits on the exit.
A two-stop strategy was always likely to be the best approach even in the warm conditions and this was proven when Hamilton was the first of those at the front to pit for hard tyres at the end of lap 21. But a snap of oversteer on the way into the pit entry road saw him breach the white entry line, which Piastri behind spotted and reported. Hamilton emerged in sixth with new hard tyres and a five-second penalty to boot, before his team mate Russell was in the next lap while successfully avoiding drawing the attention of the stewards. Piastri was the last of the leaders to stop on lap 25.
Unlike those around him, Russell went off-piste by fitting another set of mediums to his car rather than hards. But although he had theoretically quicker tyres, Russell gradually dropped back from Norris ahead, rather than closed.
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“I don’t think it helped at all, to be honest,” Russell later observed. “I think we split the strategies with Lewis just to try something. You never know how the race is going to pan out.”
Having been within two seconds of Norris when the McLaren exited the pit lane, Russell slipped to more than 12 seconds adrift on his mediums by the time he was brought in for the hards at the end of lap 46, giving him a manageable 26-lap stint on hards to finish the race. He had enough time to get out ahead of Perez in sixth, before quickly becoming the fastest driver on track with his fresh tyres.
Ahead, Piastri had the best pace of any hard runners aside from his team mate and Verstappen out front. That meant Hamilton slowly fell towards him, with the McLaren driver eventually able to come from a long way back to the Mercedes under braking for turn three to move up into fourth on the road but effectively fifth overall.
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Out at the front, Verstappen was struggling on his hards and Norris, in pursuit, was gaining and the leader knew it. The pair made their second and final scheduled stops together at the end of lap 51 with Piastri called in on the same lap. However a slow-left-rear change detained Verstappen for over twice as long as his rival, and the world champion felt Norris breathing down his neck by the time they rejoined the track – the growing pressure evident when Verstappen locked up and ran deep into turn three.
In third, Russell’s concern was more on Sainz a handful of seconds behind him than with catching the leaders, who began to engage in an intense, sustained battle for the lead over several laps once Norris reached DRS range of Verstappen. Norris’ speculative look at the outside of turn three was a warning shot, while his complaints about Verstappen’s subtle movements under braking set the tone for what would be a controversial contest between the pair.
Norris’s late lunge on lap 59 rattled the world champion, but had the unintended consequence of earning him a five second penalty for a fourth track limits strike. The McLaren had another look at turn three on lap 61 but was repelled, prompting another complaint from Norris about Verstappen’s nuanced defence.
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“He can’t keep moving after I’ve moved,” Norris said. “It’s just dangerous. We’re going to have a big shunt.”
Eventually, on lap 64, the inevitable. The tension that had been boiling between the pair hit its peak as the pair collided twice into turn three, with both Verstappen and Norris paying for their stubbornness with punctured tyres and damaged cars.
As the clash occurred, Russell was 15 seconds back, rounding turn one. As he charged up the hill to approach the scene of the drama ahead, Russell suddenly had team principal Toto Wolff barking in his ear.
“George, you can win this!,” Wolff shouted as Russell hit the brakes. “You can win this, George!”
“Let me fucking drive!,” Russell shouted back, too absorbed in the effort of trying to keep out of reach of Sainz and Piastri behind to worry about what might have happened ahead.
But it was not long before Russell could see for himself just how real his chance of victory was. As he rounded turn seven, he caught up to the damaged duo and without hesitation swept around the outside of the pair of them to seize the lead for the second successive Sunday.
Knowing he was now on the podium and less than three seconds away from his first grand prix victory, Piastri turned up the aggression and made a late lunge of his one on Sainz into turn three. While Sainz retained the position, Piastri had the momentum and DRS down the run to turn four and looked to the outside, which allowed him to cut back on the exit before beating the Ferrari driver around the outside of turn six to take second place. A far superior exhibition of hard-but-fair racing than the previous leaders had been able to put on.
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Piastri now had three seconds to make up to the Mercedes ahead to win the grand prix, but his progress was frustrated by a Virtual Safety Car for debris, forcing him to slow and providing a brief respite for Russell.
“That VSC helped marginally because my tyres were overheating,” Russell later explained. “And that just allowed me to cool them down.”
The race went green again soon after with just over five laps remaining. Piastri gradually closed on the Mercedes, but he was in desperate need of getting within DRS range as soon as possible if he was to have a realistic chance of passing.
Both Mercedes and McLaren knew better than to disturb their drivers over the radio at this critical stage. With a race victory already to his name at the end of 2022, Russell could draw on the confidence from having done it before and he held his nerve well even as Piastri closed. Eventually, at the end of the 71st lap, Russell rounded the notorious final pair of right handers for the final time and took the chequered flag to become a two-time grand prix winner and break the second-longest win drought in Mercedes’ Formula 1 history.
“It’s not over until it’s over! Great job,” Russell celebrated over the radio before receiving congratulations and an apology from his team principal.
“Yeah George, my bad – speaking in the braking. It just got me!” Wolff confessed.
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Although he had only been thrust into contention for the victory by virtue of Verstappen and Norris removing themselves from it, Russell was more than happy to take what he had been given.
Piastri was naturally far from thrilled to have to settle for second, but given he had started out of position in seventh and had to fight his way to even be in that situation to begin with, he could be satisfied with his day’s work.
“It just kind of felt like we needed some more laps towards the end, unfortunately,” Piastri said. “But no, after starting seventh, obviously a good turnaround. I’m pretty happy.”
The Ferrari was the fourth-fastest car in Austria, making Sainz’s third place an unexpected but welcome reward for his efforts.
“I think there was not much more in it this weekend,” Sainz said. “Today, we set our targets in trying to beat the Mercedes. We managed to beat one, even if one of them got ahead. We tried everything we could.”
Hamilton was promoted to fourth through the late drama, and it later transpired he was also carrying damage. Verstappen was handed a ten second penalty for drifting into Norris, but it made no difference to the championship leader’s finishing position of fifth. Norris retired in the pits and later admitted he might also have continued had he driven back to the pits more carefully.
Nico Hulkenberg lost sixth place to Perez’s damaged Red Bull on the final lap but re-passed him to lead Haas’ best result of the season at what is habitually their strongest track. Kevin Magnussen joined him in eighth.
Daniel Ricciardo claimed points in his 250th grand prix start in ninth, while Pierre Gasly kept his top ten streak alive with 10th after another tiff with his team mate, who forced him off the track at turn three.
While all the post-race discussion focused on the breaking of the once-warm relationship between Verstappen and Norris, it was easy to overlook that Mercedes had finally managed to break a losing streak of 34 rounds to take just their second victory in the ground effect era. The once-dominant force in Formula 1 had struggled for so long to find its way back to the front, but even if it had come through fortune rather than being fastest, Russell planned to enjoy it all the same.
“I want to celebrate it because you can’t take these moments for granted,” said the winner. “I feel that I’ve got a lot left in me and a lot more victories to come in the future but in an era of total dominance by one team and driver, any victory by any other driver, you need to enjoy it.”
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2024 Austrian Grand Prix
- Austrian GP clash will have taught Norris how to race Verstappen – Ricciardo
- Verstappen was “lucky” tyre damage didn’t force him to retire like Norris
- Pirelli introducing new C6 tyre to improve racing on street tracks next year
- Norris admits ‘overreacting’ but queries why Verstappen avoided track limits penalty
- Norris and Verstappen’s Austrian GP collision “blown out of proportion” – rivals
F1 race reviews
- Norris achieves feat which eluded Hamilton by taking McLaren to constructors’ title
- Verstappen masters race track and rule book with satisfying Qatar victory
- Russell strikes gold in Vegas as Verstappen’s title comes at a canter
- Verstappen counters critics with champion’s drive in soaking Sao Paulo
- Sainz seizes swansong Ferrari win as Perez endures home race horror show
Red Andy (@red-andy)
1st July 2024, 9:39
After the FIA and promoters took action to prevent a repeat of last year’s track limits penalty-fest, I was impressed by the drivers’ and teams’ ingenuity in finding so many alternative ways to rack up penalties.
Colliding with each other, crossing the pit entry line, speeding in the pit lane, we saw it all. And we even had a track limits penalty at the end, as a treat. Well done everyone.
David
1st July 2024, 22:55
This comment made me smile. Thank you!
Osnola
1st July 2024, 10:36
As russell stated, norris was already very annoyed by losing quali and sprint. His agressive actions on verstappen showed he wanted to go to and over the limit.
His whining about the defense by verstappen and the supposed moving under braking showed his frustration.
I agree with winsor, max defended hard but fair. He did NOT steered to norris as some mentioned. There was room at the left and you need only two wheels on track to be legal.
Norris was frustrated and knew he received a penalty for his continues leaving the track trying to close in on verstappen.
So, i do not agree with the 10s penalty and norris now knows these kind of last resort actions can end badly.
Tristan
1st July 2024, 11:04
If the track turns right and you keep going straight, you might as well be steering to the left.
Patrick (@paeschli)
1st July 2024, 12:16
They say a picture is worth a thousand words
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 16:03
That picture was taken before the contact with Max, he continues to go left then contact occurs with Lando’s left side wheels almost fully over the white line.
What I did notice watching it in slo-mo is that 150mts Lando is appearing in Max’s right mirror and he starts to move right, at 100mts Lando is now in Max’s left mirror and he starts to move left at around 75mts he then keeps moving left till they collide.
Osnola
1st July 2024, 18:42
https://x.com/shanethecnfsr/status/1807496836472512815
Something like this then..
Thats how its done, no moaning no contact.
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 19:40
As have been said many times it was a signature Max ‘My corner or we crash’. Watch both in slow-mo using the slider your see a big difference.
2023- At 50mts Sainz straightens up and with 5 red an white squares of the kurb left Max starts to turn right. Notice that Sainz isnt moving left in the braking zone.
2024- At 100mts Max is moving right to cover the inside, at 50mts in the braking zone Max starts to go left into the path of Lando, at the 5 red white squares point Max is still moving left and Lando does a small steering input to the left, when there are no squares left Max is still moving moving left and contact is made.
This was Max doing what he does and trying to get Lando to bail out of the corner while in the braking zone.
Lando like Lewis has now laid down a marker of ‘If you wanna play the crash or concede game’ then so be it.
He may of come of worse but I have nothing but respect for Lando for not rolling over and having his belly tickled :-)
MadMax (@madmax)
1st July 2024, 11:37
you are either blind or lying. room left? ver not steering into norris? stick to facts.
HerbertSteward (@madlewis)
1st July 2024, 14:09
Hey Max lover. Watch this then:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C82n9q0N92o/?igsh=OHA4NHNra2dhM3Uy
Osnola
1st July 2024, 18:45
https://x.com/shanethecnfsr/status/1807496836472512815
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 15:12
What lap was this picture taken? As I’ve just watched the Sprint and GP highlights on YT but cant find this incident…
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 15:47
Well it took a while to find it as they have labelled the photo 2022 but the race was Lap 26 2023.
The two are not really equivalent as Max’s left side is already over the white line when entering the braking zone and in fact comes very close to track limits to take the wider line into the corner.
Sainz didn’t wait for Max to chose a line then react to it in the braking zone.
Nick T.
1st July 2024, 13:41
You have been utterly deluded in your defense of Max. And, for the record, I am not a Lando fan.
Osnola
1st July 2024, 13:58
Only showing facts and not fanfantasys.
anon
1st July 2024, 20:19
Nick T., you assume that Osnola is prepared to accept an alternative explanation when, as their response shows, they will insist that their beliefs have to be fact as they are the only truths acceptable to them.
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 11:48
“supposed moving under braking”…..
Reminds me of a line from the Big Bang Theory when Penny is talking to Leonard
“Who are you going to believe?… Me, or the evidence of your own eyes” ;)
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 11:52
Ooops… should of been in the above post
Osnola
1st July 2024, 14:00
The stewards did not saw any moving undet braking. You need the telemetry to observe that infraction. As duch there was no moving under braking other then norris fantasy
ben
1st July 2024, 12:04
Russell is really showing how to drive that Mercedes at the moment. Pole in Canada, jumping into the lead in Spain and now a win is incredible form. He’s really stepped up and proved he easily has the beating of Hamilton who continues to trundle around in a woeful run of form. If Mercedes and Mclaren can keep this up they could form a real title challenge next season, especially with RedBull losing Newey and the 2025 car being similar.
Ferrari seem to have dropped off the development pace and Leclerc isn’t performing to WDC level either. I do worry they’ll suffer next year losing an inform Sainz for Hamilton too.
Nick T.
1st July 2024, 13:46
Yeah, he really showed us how to drive that car with the multiple mistakes in Canada and inheriting the win here. Russell is good, but he proved absolutely nothing in this race or recently.
ben
1st July 2024, 14:17
Where have you been the past few weeks Nick.T?
Pole in Canada while Hamilton was stuck down in 7th.
Qualified P3 in Spain and jumped into the lead. He was harder on the tyres, but racing at the front will have that impact in a slower car. Hamilton got the better strategy.
Qualified P3 again this weekend while Hamilton never looked to have that pace. Yes he didn’t win on raw pace, but someone had to be there to pick up the win. Where was Hamilton? Too busy being out-qualified by Russell and out raced by both Russell and Sainz.
Andre
1st July 2024, 13:52
Yeah, Lewis seems to spiral down when things are not working for him. You could see in the post-race interview how annoyed he was about how the race turned out. Watch his expression when he finishes by saying congratulations to George. You can see the pain.
Things didn’t start well with Sainz, and George outsmarted him with the DRS line. Lewis knows it could have been him taking the win, but he is not helping himself with his struggles in qualifying, to which he seems to have no answer for at the moment.
Edvaldo
1st July 2024, 16:17
Hamilton is reminding me a lot of Valentino Rossi on his final years.
He’s fast, he’s reliable, he’s capable but he can’t put everything together on a weekend even if his life depends on it.
When he qualifies well, his start is bad, when his pace is good, he’s stuck behind someone. When the track is clear, the pace is no there.
I don’t think he’ll win many further races in his career, no. If the car happens to be good, many podiums, but not many wins. He’s definitely on the downward spiral already.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
1st July 2024, 12:33
As the podium finishers said in the break room whilst watching the replays, VER wasn’t satisfied with just hitting NOR once. VER used the same tactic he used in Brazil a few years ago against HAM, except NOR didn’t drive almost to the concession stands to avoid contact like HAM did. VER was still driving left after crossing track limits. That is the fact and the stewards, reluctantly, penalized that, as it is not a legit racing move.
PlosslF1
1st July 2024, 13:17
Seeing that ‘Torpedo Max’ is back has suddenly made the rest of the season worth watching…
Osnola
1st July 2024, 14:46
“That is the fact”.. if facts and fantasy are the same you are right i guess :)
https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2024/27/1/1719832575-img-1487.png
MadMax (@madmax)
1st July 2024, 15:04
seems the stewards dont go along with your fantasy.
Nick T.
1st July 2024, 13:44
This whole their friend and trust is silly. That’s always the case when you’re not truly competing with one another regularly. It doesn’t matter that Norris lost out on points. He needed to show Max that he’ll crash before just letting Max bully him out of the way. You had to do the same thing to Schumacher to make him race you even remotely fairly.
And Max reminds me of MSC, a brilliant driver but flawed in that he can never except being beaten in wheel-to-wheel combat. The urge to instantly redress the order becomes so strong that rules and ethics go out the window and if that means taking another driver out then so be it.
Nick T.
1st July 2024, 13:51
accept*
MichaelN
1st July 2024, 17:15
The drivers all know who they are racing. This is a hugely important part of the battle that is often ignored for some reason, as if the drivers all react the same in all cases (maybe Magnussen and Ocon do, but that’s about it).
It was quite telling that even a year after their title battle, Verstappen and Hamilton clashed again in Brazil in 2022. Neither has any interest in giving the other any space. Alonso was almost pitiable in how he went out of his way to get in Vettel’s way, even when he was being lapped in those McLaren-Hondas.
Conversely, Verstappen and Leclerc had some proper clean battles in 2022. But what did Verstappen learn? Vegas 2023 tells us. He pushed Leclerc out of the way. And Leclerc… just like he did four years earlier in Austria, jumped out of his way.
Stephen Taylor
1st July 2024, 15:40
Finally an article on this topic that is well thought out and balanced and I as Lando fan I would like thank Keith and Racefans for that. on this issue? Did Max deseverve a penalty? Yes Was Lando faultless in all this? No. I honestly think Max sees Lando as like a small storm that will pass over quite soon . I think Max feels he has Lando covered which is why he is trying to laugh it off and that the bigger threat to Max’s champion status within McLarens’ garage in the time to come will be Piastri. If Lando is going to defy the odds and beat the likes of Verstappen and Piastri to a title in future he is going to have become a lot more composed in battle than he is being right now. Lando’s racing dicipline needs to improve and is an area where I feel Piastri has the upper hand. If I was Andrea Stella to back one of my drivers to go up aginst Verstappen i’d have to be backing Oscar right now.
Edvaldo
1st July 2024, 15:48
They won but they were far off Mclaren and Red Bull. After Allison said that “oh, we were so dumb, it was so simple” it felt like they found the answer and they clearly didn’t. Their car was crap and now is decent, just as it was in ’22 and ’23. A car good enough for some podiums and the odd win like this.
Riccard
1st July 2024, 18:12
“Returning to the Red Bull Ring for round 11 of the 2024 season, Mercedes were also marking a year since McLaren demoted them to being the second-fastest Mercedes-powered team on the grid”
For the first 8 rounds of the 2023 season, Mercedes were already the second-fastest Mercedes-powered team – behind Aston Martin.
Round 9 (Red Bull Racing) was when McLaren pushed them into the THIRD fastest Mercedes-powered spot.
They recovered to a mere second-fastest from round 10 at Silverstone.