Well, the rain didn’t come, the action didn’t come either. It wasn’t the Styrian Grand Prix many drivers and fans hoped for, but some report cards are ready to be dished out. Here’s the top of the class contenders and struggle bus riders from round 8 of the 2021 season.
Top of the class:
George Russell – Qualifying: 11th (started 10th) | Race: DNF
I don’t care that he didn’t finish the race, until lap 28 of the Styrian Grand Prix, George was having arguably his strongest F1 performance to date. Equalling his best qualifying, but missing out on Q3 by a gut-wrenching 0.008 seconds, the Williams driver found himself starting 10th owing to a penalty for AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda.
It was all going to plan, George actually made a pretty decent start and avoided the early drama between Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) to run a strong P8. That was the case until his first pitstop when the Williams crew attempted to fix a hydraulic issue with the car. An 18 second stop caused George to plummet towards the rear of the field.
A few laps later and a further few pitstops, the team had to retire the car and bringing a cruel end to a promising day, leaving many fans wondering if George is really cursed?
The one silver lining is that we’re back at the Red Bull Ring for the 9th round – and with the pace George showed, even in the midfield train, Russell should be confident of another shot at the long-awaited points for Williams.
Max Verstappen – Qualifying: 1st | Race: 1st
Another dominant display from the Championship leader at one of his best tracks, there is nothing else much to say really.
Topped Qualifying by over two tenths and led the race from start to finish. The Dutchman also held a comfortable buffer pretty much all the way, managing some brake-by-wire issues as well.
I still have my doubts about how long Max and Red Bull can sustain the upper hand on Mercedes (thinking back to Ferrari with Sebastian Vettel in 2017 and 2018), but Max is doing all the right things at the moment and it’s starting to rattle the Silver Arrows.
Lando Norris – Qualifying: 4th (started 3rd) | Race: 5th
Another race, another appearance in the top of the class list for Lando Norris, who has been a star for much of the 2021 season already.
After struggling for pace in Free Practice, the number 4 side of the garage had a remarkable turnaround for Qualifying, with Lando setting the fourth-fastest time in Q3 he was over half a second quicker than teammate Ricciardo, who was knocked out in Q2.
As a result of Valtteri Bottas’ penalty, Lando started a career-high of 3rd, although he wouldn’t put up a fight to keep the Finn and Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez behind. Norris ran a lonely race to a solid P5, not able to repeat the heroics of the opening round at the Red Bull Ring in 2021, but 5th was the best possible result considering the lack of carnage this time around.
This was Lando’s 7th top-5 finish this season and the Brit remains the only driver to score points in every race so far this season. Another thoroughly dominant display over Ricciardo is setting Norris well on his way to beating his points tally of 2020 (in fact a P4 in the Austrian GP would do just that).
Lance Stroll – Qualifying: 10th (started 9th) | Race: 8th
Lance had a rather under the radar weekend at the Red Bull Ring, but it was a really strong performance in comparison to teammate Sebastian Vettel. He makes the list not only for making Q3 and qualifying four positions higher and nearly three tenths faster than Seb, but for a brilliant overtake around the outside of Alpine’s Fernando Alonso at turn 6/7 on lap 1.
From there, Stroll had a decent buffer over the midfield train that formed behind Alonso but couldn’t compete with the cars further ahead, P8 was the best that the Aston Martin could have achieved in the circumstances.
The honourable mention this week go to Fernando Alonso for dragging that Alpine into Q3 and taking more solid points home with P9, beating teammate Esteban Ocon once again.
The struggle bus:
Esteban Ocon – Qualifying: 17th | Race: 14th
Another struggle bus worthy performance from the Alpine driver, who found himself eliminated in Q1 despite training 3rd in FP2.
Mystified at the loss of pace, a search party was on stand-by to find him during the race. An uninspiring run to P14 just about capped off another forgettable race for Esteban, especially because teammate Alonso is proving that the car is capable of scoring fringe top-10 finishes.
Sebastian Vettel – Qualifying: 14th | Race: 12th
After strong showings at Monaco, Baku and Paul Ricard, Vettel was anonymous at the Styrian Grand Prix. The four-time World Champion was outclassed by Stroll all weekend, only qualifying 14th and was stuck fighting Ocon, a compromised Ricciardo and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen for much of the race.
With a few lock-ups to boot at turn 4, Vettel came home a lowly P12. Unfortunately, the Red Bull Ring just isn’t one of Vettel’s strong tracks. Even more unfortunate is the fact that he’s got to face another round there this weekend coming – will we see him return on this side of the report card next week? Or will he be able to turn it around and find himself among the top of the class?
Dishonourable mentions go to Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas. Ricciardo was poor in qualifying after a strong Friday. He qualified a lowly nine places behind teammate Lando. The Aussie had a decent race pace before a power unit glitch saw him tumble back from a strong P9 to P13 in the race, and that is where he stayed for the remainder of the race.
Valtteri Bottas joins this list for stupidly spinning in the pitlane during FP2 and getting a three-place penalty. Not only whining about it for the rest of the weekend but continuing to base his singular personality trait on being strong at the Red Bull Ring. He may have beaten Lewis in qualifying, but had to rely on a poor Red Bull pitstop for Pérez to recover from 5th to finish a distant P3.
After a rather damp squib for round 8, the paddock remains at the track for round 9 for the Austrian Grand Prix. I won’t be paying much attention to weather forecasts, distrustful after the predictions for the last rounds… but in the unlikely scenario that something happens to spice up the race – we could replicate the carnage that was the season-opening 2020 Austrian GP for the 2021 running. That would be great to watch.