Those were the words of Mercedes driver George Russell, as he spoke with his team just moments after taking the checkered flag at the Austrian Grand Prix in stunning fashion. One might be excused for believing there was some bewilderment behind Russell’s comment, given how the race stood just minutes prior. Russell was running in third, behind the climactic fight between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, but he kept himself in striking distance, giving himself a chance to capitalize if something happened at the front.
Something did happen, a collision between Norris and Verstappen that ended the McLaren driver’s day and saw Verstappen limp back to the pits with a puncture of his own. The door was open for Russell, and the British driver barged through, capturing the second Grand Prix win of his Formula 1 career, and the first for Mercedes this season.
“It was a tough fight out there at the beginning of the race,” said Russell to David Coulthard trackside immediately following his stunning victory. “The team has worked so hard, we’ve made so many strides since the start of the season. The last three races have been incredible, and there’s more to come … what an exciting time for us.”
Indeed it is an exciting time for the Silver Arrows. Mercedes struggled out of the gate this season, and arrived in Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix just a few short weeks ago languishing in fourth place in the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings.
They were a staggering 180 points behind first-place Red Bull, and 156 points behind Ferrari.
But then came signs of life. The first signs came at the Canadian Grand Prix when Russell captured pole position, and while he could not hold off at the front of the race he secured the team’s first Grand Prix podium of the year with a third-place finish, to go with a second place from Lewis Hamilton in the F1 Sprint Race at the Chinese Grand Prix. Hamilton matched Russell’s P3 with one of his own in Barcelona.
Then came Sunday.
With Russell’s win and a fourth-place finish from Lewis Hamilton — along with their results from Saturday’s F1 Sprint Race — Mercedes banked another 45 points in the standings. Making them the hottest team on the grid over those three race weekends.
Here is what the teams at the top of the grid have done over this period:
Red Bull: 79 McLaren: 84 Ferrari: 39 Mercedes: 100
That has seen Mercedes cut not only into Red Bull’s lead over them, but pull to within 95 points of Ferrari up in second place.
A stunning turnaround for the Silver Arrows.
“Incredible! That’s the only way I can describe it. We had a tough fight in the early stages to make sure we held on to P3. That would prove crucial at the end,” said Norris in the team’s post-race report. “I could see that Max [Verstappen] and Lando [Norris] were having a big battle. We were only just over ten seconds behind the pair of them, which is really encouraging pace-wise.
“I knew there was a possibility that they could come together, even if it was only a slim chance. You have to be there at the end to pick up the pieces and that’s exactly where we were. I am so proud to be back on the top step of the podium.”
“It is a great feeling to get back on to the top step of the podium. It is a fantastic reward for the hard work and efforts of everyone at Brackley and Brixworth. We have taken good steps forward in recent races, and we are excited about what is still to come,” described Team Principal Toto Wolff. “We knew our outright pace today wouldn’t quite be enough to challenge for victory. We therefore made sure we [maximized] our race and were able to pick up the pieces, should anything happen. We enjoyed some good fortune but that is motor racing.”
On the other side of the garage Hamilton — whose fourth-place finish added another 12 points to that tally for the team — hailed the effort these past few weeks from the entire organization.
“Congratulations to George and the team. Everyone at Brackley and Brixworth really deserves this result,” offered Hamilton. “They have worked so hard to bring performance to the car and we are starting to get us closer and closer to the very front. We put in so much effort so to get a result like this is a well-deserved reward for everyone’s efforts.”
The grid now shifts home for Mercedes, for next weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone. While the fight at the front — and the collision between Norris and Verstappen that opened the door for Russell in the first place — will likely dominate the headlines the surge from Mercedes is absolutely worthy of note.
A year ago it was McLaren who pulled off a surge of their own, rocketing up the Constructors’ Championship to ultimately finish fourth. Their turnaround showed its first signs of life in Austria, where Russell just captured Mercedes’ first win of the season.
The Silver Arrows showed their own signs of a turnaround a few weeks earlier than that. So it might be fair to ask: Just how high can Mercedes climb this year?
Daniel Ricciardo’s millions of fans might want him to keep making predictions.
A year ago at the Mexico City Grand Prix the Formula 1 driver declared that his car had top ten potential after the first two practice sessions. Ricciardo proved that over the next two days, qualifying fourth for the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix and then finishing seventh in the main event. It was Ricciardo’s best result after his shocking mid-season return to the grid, and went a long way towards him keeping that seat for the 2024 campaign.
On Saturday at Red Bull Ring Ricciardo just missed out on Q3, finishing 0.015 seconds behind tenth-place finisher Esteban Ocon. That saw Ricciardo’s qualifying session for the Austrian Grand Prix end in Q2, but the Australian driver remained as optimistic as ever, offering another slight prediction following qualifying.
“Of course, it’s frustrating to miss out on Q3 by just a few milliseconds this afternoon, but at the same time, it’s a more positive one as I think we made some progress since yesterday and it’s something we have to be proud of,” said Ricciardo in Visa Cash App RB F1 Team’s post-qualifying report Saturday. “I think we still need to find something a little bit extra for tomorrow but today’s qualifying put us in a much better position for the race. It’s going to be a longer one with pit stops and [tire] differences, so there’s no reason to believe we can’t be a top ten car tomorrow.”
On Sunday, Ricciardo proved himself right.
Ricciardo started his 250th-career F1 race in P11, but moved up into the top ten, running a clean race to secure P9 and add two massive points to his account on the year. The team used an early pit stop, allowing Ricciardo to undercut some of his competitors on the track, particularly the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.
Following the race, the driver talked about the “step forward” on his side of the garage.
“It was a tough race and I think we were a bit more on the [defense], so it took a lot of concentration and effort,” said Ricciardo in the team’s post-race report. “I had a good start on the outside and was looking good, but then I lost a couple of positions as there was no more room and I had to go wide.
“Once we settled after the start of the race, I think we did well; the team did a good job with the strategy to secure the position over the Alpines, and then I feel like I drove a good defence against Fernando [Alonso] and then Pierre [Gasly] in the last stint. We made a nice step from Barcelona, and it’s been a better weekend, so I’m happy to bring home some points. Now we’ll try to make another good step forward for Silverstone and then maybe that puts us in another fight for points.”
The finish comes at a time the Australian driver badly needed a result like this finish. The week of the Australian Grand Prix began with renewed questions about Ricciardo’s future in the sport. Between Dr. Helmut Marko outlining how Red Bull shareholders might want to see a younger driver in the seat — cue the camera pan to Liam Lawson — and noted F1 journalist Joe Saward speculating that Lawson might be in the seat before summer gives way to autumn, to say Ricciardo was under pressure would be an understatement.
The VCARB driver noted that pressure on Thursday, outlining how his “performance” and not his trademark smile would be the reason he kept his seat on the grid.
Sunday, following yet another prediction from him, Ricciardo delivered the kind of performance he needed.
At the start of the Spanish Grand Prix last week a fight at the front of the field between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris off the start opened the door for George Russell to sweep into the lead. However, as you know by now Verstappen eventually wound his way by Russell, holding off Norris down the stretch to capture the Spanish Grand Prix.
Something similar played out at Red Bull Ring on Sunday, but with a much different result.
For around 50 laps of the Austrian Grand Prix it seemed as if Max Verstappen was going to run away from the field, as the Red Bull driver had built a commanding lead over Lando Norris and the rest of the field. The feeling that the other ten teams, the other 19 drivers, and perhaps the overwhelming majority of fans watching around the world was one of dread, at the sight – and potential – that Verstappen was going to run away not just on this day, but over the rest of the days this season.
However, moments later the door opened, just a crack, and the fight was on.
A slow pit stop from Verstappen and Red Bull on Lap 51 – coupled with a much quicker stop from Norris and McLaren – opened that door. Red Bull struggled with the left rear tire on Verstappen’s RB20, leading to a pit stop of 6.5 seconds for Red Bull. McLaren bested that with a 2.9-second stop for Norris, and the two lumbered off pit lane with Norris nipping at Verstappen’s heels.
For over ten laps the two friends-turned-rivals battled it out pushing their machines, each other, and themselves to the absolute limits. At one point Norris got by Verstappen, but the overtake came off the track and the McLaren driver immediately gave the position back. Both drivers were all over the track – and their radio – griping to their teams and airing their frustrations as they pushed their machines to the limit.
Then, on 63, the simmering pot that was this fight between friends boiled over.
On Lap 63 the fight was renewed, and it ended poorly for both drivers. The two drivers came alongside each other and contact was made, with a disastrous result for both. Norris and Verstappen both limped back to the pits with punctures, bringing out the safety car and seeing another driver sweep into the lead.
George Russell.
As the laps ticked down Wolff looked on with a shy smile, seeing the silver and black W15 of Russell’s wind around the track. Oscar Piastri was more than two second behind, and Russell just needed to bring his W15 home to deliver his second-career victory.
He did just that.
“It’s not over, until it’s over,” declared Russell on the radio to his team after taking the checkered flag. “We wouldn’t have thought this in Bahrain. Well done.”
Starting at the Miami Grand Prix, Mercedes began a series of upgrades to the W15, their challenger for the 2024 season. Those upgrades have seen the team improve their performance in recent weeks, marked by their first grand prix podiums of the year. The first came from Russell in Montreal, and the second from Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona. But those were P3 finishes.
This is a win, the first for the team since Russell won in Brazil back in 2022.
“It was a tough fight out there at the beginning of the race,” said Russell to David Coulthard trackside. “The team has worked so hard, we’ve made so many strides since the start of the season. The last three races have been incredible, and there’s more to come … what an exciting time for us.”
Much will be said and written in the coming days about the fight between Norris and Verstappen, and whether these friends will see their relationship start to change given the fight at the sharp end of the grid. But on this day a winner emerged, and it was Russell, who fought to the very end and delivered a victory that Mercedes badly needed. A win that not only helps their standing in the Constructors’ Championship but also rewards the hours upon hours of work that the team has put in to solve the issues with the W15. At the Miami Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton described the car at that point in the season to the media, including SB Nation, as being on a “knife’s edge.”
That edge is something very different right now.
And it might be enough to get Mercedes to the sharp end of the grid too.
A year ago at the Mexico City Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo made a prediction that might have seen Joe Namath smile.
Is the Australian driver about to deliver a repeat performance at the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix?
Following the Friday practice sessions at the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix Ricciardo emphatically declared that he had a “top ten” car heading into qualifying. Ricciardo finished sixth on the timing sheets in practice in Mexico City, ahead of Lewis Hamilton for example, and believed he was primed for a strong performance.
He delivered that performance on Saturday in Mexico City, putting his AlphaTauri on the second row alongside former Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen. Ricciardo finished the job the next day with a seventh-place finish, which was his best result following his shocking mid-season return to the grid.
Speaking Saturday at Red Bull Ring in the aftermath of qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, Ricciardo made a similar statement.
“We knew that it would have been hard to get into the points in the Sprint, but it was important to race and learn for tomorrow,” said Ricciardo in Visa Cash App RB F1 Team’s post-qualifying report. “There are some positives from the battles we had this morning and the way the car responded was not too bad.
“Of course, it’s frustrating to miss out on Q3 by just a few milliseconds this afternoon, but at the same time, it’s a more positive one as I think we made some progress since yesterday and it’s something we have to be proud of. I think we still need to find something a little bit extra for tomorrow but today’s qualifying put us in a much better position for the race. It’s going to be a longer one with pit stops and [tire] differences, so there’s no reason to believe we can’t be a top ten car tomorrow.”
As noted by the driver while he did not advance into Q3, he missed out on the final spot in the third segment of qualifying by just 0.015 seconds, as Esteban Ocon snatched P10 from Ricciardo’s grasp.
Still, the Australian driver remains confident.
That confidence and optimism comes as Ricciardo faces renewed speculation about his future at the team. The driver acknowledged those questions earlier in the week, noting that his “performance” — not his trademark “smile” — will determine his fate.
Backing up his confidence tomorrow will bolster his case.
Early in the second segment of qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, the field was condensed at the front, with not much separating the drivers atop the timing sheets. To that point, the first segment of qualifying was the closest-ever Q1 since the sport implemented the three-segment qualifying format, a testament to just how compact the grid is this season.
Then Red Bull bolted on a fresh set of soft tires onto Max Verstappen’s RB20, and the three-time Drivers’ Champion posted a blistering lap that was almost five-tenths clear of the rest of the field, which remained condensed behind him.
While Lando Norris and company closed that gap in Q3 Verstappen delivered again in the final segment of qualifying, holding Norris off by over four-tenths of a second. Verstappen’s final run of the day was a stunning 1:04.314, another thunderous effort from the champion.
Formula 1 in 2024 has certainly seen the field more compact than ever, but one driver remains at the tip of the spear, and that is Verstappen. The Red Bull driver, hours after securing victory in the F1 Sprint Race despite challenges from Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, captured yet another pole position, setting himself up for another massive day on Sunday.
“No one is near Max Verstappen,” declared Alex Jacques on F1TV. “That was a masterclass.”
“The car felt a lot better for me today,” said Verstappen to Jolyon Palmer trackside after the session. “It’s a great feeling, I think this is a great statement.”
Here are the full results from qualifying, along with some more winners and losers.
Winner: Lando Norris
Lando Norris has answered a bell of his own so far this weekend. The McLaren driver arrived in Austria under the weather and has been battling himself in the cockpit all week long.
Still, he put himself on the front row for the F1 Sprint Race on Friday, and will again start alongside Verstappen in Sunday’s main event.
However, starting alongside Verstappen, while notable, does not finish the job. The real challenge that Norris faces is translating one of these starts next to Verstappen into something bigger.
His second F1 Grand Prix victory.
“Max was a league of his own,” said Norris to Palmer trackside. But can he catch Verstappen tomorrow?
“It’s tough, when you look at the pace it’s clear that we’re gonna have to give it a lot,” added Norris. “I’ll do a better job than this morning, that’s for sure.”
Norris has been brutally honest regarding his performances in recent weeks. He blamed himself for failing to pull out a win at the Spanish Grand Prix despite wrestling pole position away from Verstappen at the death. After Saturday’s F1 Sprint race, he referred to himself as an “amateur” when discussing an early-lap fight with Verstappen that opened the door for teammate Oscar Piastri to snatch P2 away from him. The young driver is his own biggest critic, an admirable quality in this sport.
Having answered one bell already this week, fending off his illness to put in some solid performances, Norris can massively answer another bell tomorrow if he can find a way to keep Verstappen in sight and deliver his second Grand Prix victory.
Losers: Aston Martin
Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
At this point, it might be fair to ask what is wrong at Aston Martin.
To that point, that is exactly what Jolyon Palmer queried from the F1TV commentary box: “What on earth is going on with that team?” asked Palmer at the end of Q1.
While they were the darlings of the early 2023 F1 season, their fortunes have changed since then. While they arrived sitting sixth in the Constructors’ Championship and were just a few weeks removed from their best result of the season, which saw them bank 14 points at the Canadian Grand Prix thanks to double points from Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, they finished with anything to show for their efforts in Barcelona, and look on track for something similar this weekend.
Both Alonso and Stroll were eliminated in SQ2 on Friday, and they finished outside the points in the F1 Sprint Race earlier in the day.
Qualifying for the Grand Prix was not much better.
Stroll was eliminated in Q1, placing 17th. Alonso squeaked into Q2, placing the 15th-fastest time in Q1, but his day ended there, as he will start the Austrian Grand Prix in 15th.
In the studio on F1TV Alex Brundle outlined how both Stroll and Alonso were dealing with balance issues on the AMR24. “You can see it really plowing through the middle of the corner,” described Brundle as he talked over replays from Q1 and Q2. “Nasty balance.”
It is fair to point out that during Friday’s FIA Press Conference team boss Mike Krack outlined how tracks such as Barcelona and Red Bull Ring might not suit the AMR24 given its current performance.
“We knew that Barcelona, Spielberg, Silverstone will be hard for us because we struggle in tracks where you have a large spread of corners and also where you have a lot of high-speed corners,” said Krack on Friday. “So it was not a surprise. We raced the same car two weeks before in Montréal, where we came away with the highest points score that we had this year. So it shows you how the situations can change quickly. And also, I think in Montréal, you then run in free air, which helps everything. And in Barcelona, you’re not. We had a lot of degradation in Barcelona and then things get just worse and worse and worse over the course and there’s not much you can do other than bring it home. and that is what we did.”
However, track layout is one thing, and many teams face the occasional track or two that do not suit their challenger. But the bigger question for Aston Martin at the moment is the lack of development. That was an issue for the team last year, as they followed their tremendous start with some mid-season development struggles.
Heading into 2024 the word from the team was that they needed to do a better job of upgrading their challenger throughout the campaign. “We’ve seen, particularly last season, but also the season before, the in-season development races is absolutely fierce, and we want to be as competitive in that as we have been going into the new season,” said Technical Director Dan Fallows at the launch of the AMR24. “So that’s what we’ve been really focussed on is to make sure that we’ve got a good, stable basis for us to go and develop the car and keep those updates coming and keep the performance coming.”
But the upgrades to date have not delivered in this department, as Krack admitted on Friday.
“I think you’re right,” said Krack when asked if the in-season development has stalled as it did a year ago. “I would not say stalled, but I think clearly others do a better job than we do, and that is something that we have to seriously put under scrutiny. There is never one thing in Formula 1, obviously.
“You always have several factors contributing, but I think we have to have a close look at aerodynamics because this is performance differentiator number one in F1 and also how we do how we do these things. So that’s something that is clearly being analysed thoroughly not only now over the last month and I think we have understood some of our issues and trying to solve them as quick as possible. But we still have a long way ahead.”
That long way ahead seems even longer today.
Winner: George Russell
The summer of progress continues at Mercedes.
For the third race weekend in a row, the Brackley-based team put a car into the top three of a Saturday qualifying session. George Russell started that streak with his stunning pole position at the Canadian Grand Prix, which Lewis Hamilton extended with his P3 in qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Russell continued that on Saturday, capturing P3 after Oscar Piastri’s best lap was deleted for exceeding track limits by the slightest of margins.
In this sport, every margin matters.
Now Mercedes has a chance to extend another streak, as the Silver Arrows have secured 27 points or more in each of the past two race weekends. Mercedes banked 28 points at the Canadian Grand Prix and added 27 more in Barcelona. They enter Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix having already added eight points to their account, thanks to Russell’s P4 and Hamilton’s P6 in the F1 Sprint Race.
That puts them on a path to keep that streak alive tomorrow in the main event.
“The car’s feeling really great at the moment,” said Russell trackside. “It’s definitely going in the right direction for us.
“Three races in a row for us that we’re in the top three,” added the Mercedes driver.
While Russell conceded that Mercedes’ race is likely with the cars behind him, such as the Ferraris of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc, as well as a lurking Piastri, the team has certainly made progress over these past few weeks.
That progress has translated into podiums, and with a little luck, it could start translating into something more for Mercedes.
Perhaps even a win.
Losers: Williams
“We know our limitations and these conditions isn’t it. Such a shame, man.”
That was the report from Logan Sargeant following the end of Q1, which saw both Sargeant and teammate Alexander Albon eliminated at the back of the field.
Williams arrived at Red Bull Ring hopeful that the layout would provide fertile ground for improved performance. But that hope has yet to materialize, as their struggles on Friday continued into Saturday. Both Albon and Sargeant — who out-qualified Albon for the first time in his F1 career when he advanced into SQ2 on Friday — were eliminated in Q1, and that left both drivers seeking answers.
However, those answers might not arrive in time for Williams to salvage anything this weekend.
Winner: Nico Hülkenberg
Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
The last points result for Haas came in the F1 Sprint Race at the Miami Grand Prix. On that hot and humid Saturday afternoon Nico Hülkenberg came across the line seventh, adding a pair of points to the team’s account.
Since then Haas has been kept out of the points, and in that time they have seen Alpine leapfrog them in the Constructors’ Championship standings, thanks to a pair of double-points finishes from Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly over the last two race weekends.
This is a team that badly needed a positive result to answer that challenge, and they took a big step towards that result on Saturday. Both Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen advanced to Q2 in Saturday’s session, and while the Danish driver saw his session end there Hülkenberg advanced into Q3, and qualified ninth, matching his previous best this season.
While there is still work to be done, this is a result that the driver, and the team, truly needed.
Incomplete: Sergio Pérez
Sergio Pérez advanced into Q3 and qualified eighth for the Austrian Grand Prix, setting himself up for a solid day of points in Sunday’s main event.
But the Red Bull driver might face more questions than answers right now.
Pérez entered the 2024 F1 season facing questions about his future at Red Bull. With his contract due to expire at the end of the current campaign, Pérez came out firing on all cylinders to start the year, scoring podium finishes in four of the first five race weekends. At the Miami Grand Prix Pérez added another 18 points to his account over the F1 Sprint Race and the Miami Grand Prix itself.
It has been a much different story since then.
The Mexican driver has added just nine points to his account since Miami, and that includes the point he added earlier this morning with an eighth-place finish in the F1 Sprint Race at Red Bull Ring. His eighth-place result in qualifying today matches his best qualifying performance over this difficult stretch, which has also seen Pérez in Q1 twice (Monaco and Canada) and Q2 once, at Imola.
A year ago Pérez endured a similar mid-season swoon, one that effectively ended any thought of him challenging Verstappen atop the Drivers’ Championship standings. However, this mid-season swoon comes in a year where, as noted above, the field has caught the rear wing of Red Bull. Last year the Bulls were able to easily overcome the rest of the field and cruise to a second-straight Constructors’ Championship, even with Pérez’s mid-year struggles.
Could 2024 be a different story?
Improved form from Pérez might end that story, and see Red Bull again pull away from the field in the Constructors’ Championship. But the longer he continues this inconsistent form, the more that door remains open for a team like Ferrari or McLaren to barge through.
On Friday at Red Bull Ring Williams driver Logan Sargeant did something he had never done before in his Formula 1 career.
Finish ahead of teammate Alexander Albon in qualifying.
While Albon struggled with the balance of his FW46 during both the first practice session and Friday’s F1 Sprint Qualifying, finding himself eliminated in SQ1, Sargeant put together a strong first segment of qualifying, advancing into SQ2.
While the American driver saw his time deleted in SQ2 for exceeding track limits and will start today’s F1 Sprint Race in P15, he hailed the effort on Friday as a “good step forward” following a difficult Spanish Grand Prix.
“SQ1 was a good build-up, however in SQ2, I didn’t quite get Turn 1 and 3 right, attempting to make it up in the second half of the lap,” described Sargeant in the team’s post-session report. “I managed this, but then clipped the gravel in Turn 6 and that was unfortunately out. I’m still happy with my session and think it’s a good place to be starting tomorrow. The conditions are changing from session to session.
“We are being proactive with set-up and countering the differences and I feel like we did a good job and turned things around from FP1 to Sprint Qualifying, so we’ll just keep trying to do a bit more of the same. It’s been a good step forward from Barcelona.”
Williams Sporting Director Sven Smeets praised the effort from the team’s second-year driver, noting Sargeant is in a “good position” to try and notch a result today.
“Logan did a good job and got into SQ2 with a clean and decent last push lap. In SQ2, we knew he had to give it his all to gain some places on the grid but unfortunately couldn’t get it all lined up and his lap was deleted,” described Smeets. “Nevertheless, he will be in a good position tomorrow to fight and look out for opportunities.”
Sargeant has just one point over his year-plus in F1, which came at last season’s United States Grand Prix when he was promoted to P10 following post-race disqualifications handed down to Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. But can the young driver follow up a good Friday, with an even better Saturday?
Friday was not the easiest of days for Daniel Ricciardo as the 2024 Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix got underway.
But despite the early struggles, one of F1’s main attractions is staying upbeat.
Ricciardo posted the 16th-fastest time in the single practice of the week, and could not improve on that position in Friday’s F1 Sprint Qualifying session. The Visa Cash App RB F1 Team driver finished 16th, leading to his elimination in SQ1.
Perhaps adding to the frustration? The fact that Ricciardo missed out on a spot in SQ2 by less than three-hundredths of a second, to teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
But in his post-session comments, Ricciardo remained positive.
“It’s a short lap here, so it’s always going to be tricky. We changed quite a lot from FP1, and we’re still trying to learn about the package, but obviously, it’s frustrating when you miss out by a small bit,” said the driver in VCARB’s post-session media report. “The second lap of the Sprint-Quali was definitely better than the first one, but we still need to finetune some things. I do think we made the right changes, but maybe we need to balance it better. We’ll try to use the Sprint to understand the car always more, so I’m staying optimistic.”
Ricciardo’s optimism comes as there is increased speculation about his position with the team, not just for the 2025 season but perhaps the rest of this season. Red Bull Senior Advisor Dr. Helmut Marko kicked that speculation off ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix earlier this week, noting that there is perhaps some pressure from shareholders to give a younger driver — Liam Lawson — a seat at VCARB.
That speculation kicked into overdrive when noted F1 journalist Joe Saward surmised on social media that Lawson could be in that seat as early as this summer.
With the usual caveats that every rumor regarding driver movement in F1 needs to be given context and taken with a healthy grain of salt or two, Ricciardo admitted during Thursday’s media day that he needs to improve his performance.
“I said I really do enjoy being back in the [Red Bull] family,” said Ricciardo to the assembled media on Thursday. “I weirdly do enjoy sometimes a little bit of the pokes from Helmut because I think it also could be a way to get me a little bit fired up and try to get the best out of me.”
Still, Ricciardo was clear about what he needs to do to secure his future.
“It’s the on-track stuff so I’ve obviously got a good opportunity, I say until the summer break,” continued Ricciardo. “I don’t think that’s a deadline but obviously that’s what you look at for the first half of the season. So I try to do what I can and obviously help my cause.”
Friday also saw the second FIA Press Conference ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, with VCARB CEO Peter Bayer addressing Ricciardo’s performance to date, as well as the rumors regarding Lawson.
“Well, [Ricciardo] certainly has helped us tremendously. Looking back last year when he joined the team, he brought a whole new energy and spirit into the team. And he has been extremely helpful in supporting Yuki. Yuki has just stated that very recently, actually, that he still keeps learning from Daniel,” began Bayer. “And it’s part of our job, also as a mission from the shareholders, to develop drivers. And that’s what we currently do. But certainly, as Christian said, this is about performance.
“We do luckily have a couple of options with the junior [program], but we’re also not in a hurry to take a decision for next year’s line-up. We’ve confirmed Yuki, which was very important for us. And the focus currently, honestly, as you can tell, is on the car and to go into the summer break and have a quiet discussion.”
Bayer — as well as Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner — was pressed on the driver lineup by the brilliant Luke Smith of The Athletic. For Horner, he outlined how any decisions will be first addressed in-house, but did offer that like everything in F1, the lineup at VCARB is “fluid.”
“I think anything regarding drivers is going to be dealt with in-house before we talk to the media about it. They’re all, as I say, Red Bull racing drivers and every Red Bull driver knows that there’s always a pressure, that there’s always a scrutiny,” described Horner. “But, you know, Daniel is in the seat and it’s down to him to make the most of that. And then, it’s always, as we see in Formula 1, things are always fluid.”
As for Bayer, he echoed Horner’s thoughts.
“Perhaps just to add on what Christian perfectly summarised, Liam is part of the team, he’s our test driver, he’s in the simulator,” added Bayer. “As most of you know, he’ll be in the [Testing of Previous Car session]. We do our job to develop young drivers, but the decision on the second seat will be taken quietly and we’re not in a hurry.”
VCARB and Red Bull might not be in a hurry to solidify their lineup for 2025 — and make a decision on Ricciardo’s future — but the driver remains under mounting pressure to improve his form.
Haas last added to their account in the F1 Sprint Race at the Miami Grand Prix, when Nico Hülkenberg parlayed a tenth-place finish in qualifying for the F1 Sprint Race into a seventh-place result in the F1 Sprint Race itself, earning two critical points for the team.
With Formula 1 returning to the F1 Sprint format this weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix, can Haas return to the points?
It has been a difficult stretch for the team since Miami, with their best chance for points coming in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola. That weekend saw Hülkenberg qualify tenth, but he finished in P11, one spot out of the points. Since then they have been left on the outside looking in, including a double DNF in Monaco due to an opening-lap collision involving Sergio Pérez.
Their recent struggles opened the door for Alpine, whose own success the past few weeks — with six points over two race weekends — has seen the French outfit climb above them in the Constructors’ Championship standings. Alpine now sits seventh in the table with eight points, one point — and place — ahead of Haas with seven points.
As Haas heads to Red Bull Ring along with the rest of the grid for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, they are hopeful that recent success at that circuit will aid their quest for points.
“It’s a short track that packs in a lot of fun,” said Hülkenberg in the team’s media preview. “The length of the circuit means it bunches us all up over qualifying, which is a challenge, but we have two opportunities as it’s a Sprint. Last year I scored points around the Red Bull Ring, so I know it can be done, and we want to be back scoring points, so that’s the mission in Spielberg.”
On the other side of the garage Kevin Magnussen — who is hoping to have his F1 future resolved “soon” — is wary that the many high-speed corners in Austria could pose a problem for the team’s VF-24.
“It’s a fun track; I’ve got some good memories from the Red Bull Ring, that’s where we’ve had our best team result so I’m looking forward to going there again,” described Magnussen. “We have quite an efficient car so hopefully with our good straight-line speed we can be good there. There’s still a fair number of high-speed corners, which is perhaps not our strength, but we seem to be pretty consistently good at most tracks. I’m just looking forward to a fun Sprint weekend.”
Haas Race Engineer Mark Slade walked through the variety of corners Red Bull Ring offers, and how each may, or may not, suit the team’s challenger.
“One of the main things about the Red Bull Ring is that it’s a very short lap so it gets busy, particularly in practice and qualifying. It’s a nice mixture of low-, medium-, and high-speed corners, and obviously in a spectacular setting so it looks amazing, and it does provide quite a significant challenge for us when setting the car up,” described Slade. “We’ve had some issues with medium-speed corners, so we’re expecting to have to manage that, it’s going to be a challenge for us, but on the other hand in low-speed corners, we’ve generally been very good at them and we think we’ve taken a step forward in high-speed corners recently. We’ll see how we get on, but we’ve got a plan of course.”
While many teams have addressed the challenges a compressed F1 Sprint week puts in front of them, Slade outlined how for a team like Haas, there are added benefits to the condensed schedule.
“There is a lot of extra work for a Sprint, especially in amongst a triple-header, but it also makes it very interesting, it’s all a part of Formula 1,” said Slade. “You have to be realistic that you’re not going to be able to do everything you’d like to do with one practice session, so you have to pick the most important points that you think are relevant to getting the best out of the car in both the Sprint and the race and work to achieve those objectives – it’s a very compressed, highly edited run plan.
“The format of a Sprint is different from previous years, so you can afford to be a little bit more experimental in the Sprint race because points only go to eighth place, and realistically we’re chasing that last points-paying position so it means we can try things that we wouldn’t necessarily have tried, knowing we can change things for the race.”
Slade and the rest of the team get their first crack at Red Bull Ring this Friday.
As has been argued here and elsewhere, Lando Norris’ frustration following his second-place finish in last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix told us not just the story of one singular race, but rather the entire 2024 Formula 1 season.
A year ago in Barcelona, Max Verstappen cruised to a 24-second victory ahead of Lewis Hamilton, and the strength of the RB19 was evident in the closing stages of that race. After being given repeated warnings for exceeding track limits, Verstappen had such an advantage on the track that he felt confident enough to post the fastest lap of the race in the closing stages, prompting another legendary request from his race engineer, Gianpietro Lambiase. “Ok,” quipped the engineer known as GP, “now can you bring it home within the white lines?”
Last Sunday in Barcelona was a much different story. Verstappen needed to overtake George Russell — after the Mercedes driver’s stunning double overtake on the opening lap — to get into the lead. And while the Red Bull champion enjoyed an eight-second advantage over Norris in the final act of the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, the McLaren driver not only got that down to two seconds in the closing laps, but he felt that he had the fastest car, and should have won.
F1 this season is a whole new ballgame.
Teams like McLaren, Ferrari, and perhaps even Mercedes have closed the gap to Red Bull, putting the defending Constructors’ Champions — and Verstappen himself — under pressure. Of course, putting Red Bull and Verstappen under pressure is one thing, but getting that well-oiled machine to crack under stress is another. On a Sunday in Barcelona, Red Bull answered that call, fending off the field for another victory.
But will that be the case this weekend in Austria?
Speaking on Sunday night following the Miami Grand Prix Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur told the assembled media, including SB Nation, that teams were now able to put some pressure on Red Bull at the front, which could be a “game changer” for the season.
“What is true is that compared to one year ago when we are able to do a good job and to put everything together, we are there, it means that we are putting [Red Bull] a little bit under pressure. They have to take to be a bit more aggressive with the strategy,” started Vasseur in Miami.
“They are not anymore in the comfort zone of last year when last year that doesn’t matter what’s happened after lap two, they were in front and it’s, I think it’s a game changer in the management of the race,” added Vasseur.
“And this, it’s an opportunity for us because that if we are doing another small step, I think that we will be really in a position to fight with them every single weekend.”
That fight continues this weekend, and is one of many storylines to watch.
Have race organizers truly solved the track limits issue?
F1 fans will recall the three most common words used during the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix.
“Track limits exceed.”
Consider these numbers from last year:
During qualifying alone, 47 laps were deleted due to “exceeding track limits,” resulting in a shaken-up field and lots of angry drivers, teams, and fans. Then in the Grand Prix itself a number of drivers were hit with penalties for exceeding track limits, and it even led to a post-race protest from Aston Martin, inquiring whether all the appropriate penalties were levied.
That protest was upheld, and even more drivers were hit with penalties hours after the race concluded. An additional 12 penalties were handed out to 8 drivers, and race officials noted that they still were unable to review all 1,200 potential incidents of exceeding track limits.
Those numbers prompted not just drivers, but prominent figures within the sport to wonder if changes needed to be made at the Red Bull Ring. “The problem is it’s very difficult for the drivers because they can’t see the white line from the car so you’re just purely doing it on feel and the circuit invites you to go there,” said Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner, speaking before the post-race penalties were announced last season. “So I think that it’s something that needs to be looked at for next year to perhaps add more of a deterrent for the drivers to be drawn onto that part of the circuit.”
Now, it seems that that deterrent has been added.
As was reported by Race Fans last year the FIA requested race organizers to install gravel traps at the circuit, focusing on Turns 9 and 10. “In order to address the issue for future events we will renew our recommendation to the circuit to add a gravel trap at the exit of turns nine and 10,” said a spokesperson from FIA to RaceFans last season. “We note that while this is not a straightforward solution in relation to other series that race here, it has proved to be very effective at other corners and circuits with similar issues.”
On Tuesday images surfaced of new gravel traps at the circuit, indeed in the vicinity of Turn 10:
Will these gravel traps solve the issue? That might be difficult to accomplish, given the size of Red Bull Ring. Measuring in at just over 4.3 kilometers and with only ten corners, the circuit is one of the smallest on the calendar. While every millisecond counts in F1, that is especially true in Austria, particularly in qualifying. Consider what Logan Sargeant told me about track limits earlier this season:
“Yeah, the ones that drive me crazy are the, ‘[j]ust keep it on [the track]’ like when we’re talking about track limits,” said Sargeant. “And then you look at Bahrain and first through 20th in Q1 is covered by eight tenths.
“Especially when you’re on the back end of that [lap], trying to make it through Q1 and you’re always on the cusp. Imagine, you know, leaving a bit of time on the table can shuffle you down two or three positions if you’re too safe and then when you add the tires overheating through the lap, the wind gusting and changing throughout the lap. Even just having a slight slipstream from the car had completely changes the corner,” added Sargeant. “You know, I think so much more goes into completing a lot than people realize and also being able to keep it within the white lines and still getting the most out of it. It’s a lot more complex than just, you know, ‘keep it within the white lines.’
“There’s, there’s so many variables and, I think people forget that a lot.”
The presence of the traps might help, but expect to hear those three words often this weekend.
Are we witnessing a Mercedes bounceback?
Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images
A year ago McLaren delivered a stunning turnaround, rocketing up the standings following a dismal start to the season. In many ways, that turnaround began in Austria a year ago, when a fourth-place finish from Norris banked 12 points for the team.
They entered the Austrian Grand Prix last year with 17 points to their name, tallied throughout eight race weekends.
Are we seeing something similar from Mercedes?
The Silver Arrows got out to a slow start of their own this season, but have certainly shown progress in recent weeks. A series of upgrades the team began to roll out back in Miami have delivered improved performance on the track, and the team is coming off their two best race weekends of the year. In Montreal, they captured their first pole position of the season, thanks to a strong performance from George Russell, and Russell’s P3 gave the team their first Grand Prix podium of the year, to go with a P4 from Lewis Hamilton. (Hamilton notched a podium with his P2 in the F1 Sprint Race at the Chinese Grand Prix back in April).
Last week in Barcelona, the team enjoyed another strong weekend, locking out the second row in both qualifying and the Grand Prix, with Hamilton finishing third and Russell fourth.
Progress has certainly come to Brackley, as well as perhaps the next great F1 meme above. But can they keep this momentum rolling in the Austrian hills?
Frustration at Ferrari
On the other end of the spectrum, we find the Scuderia.
Back at the end of May Ferrari was on a roll. Charles Leclerc finally broke through with a win in his home race, capturing the Monaco Grand Prix. Add in a P3 from teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. — and only eight points for Red Bull on the weekend thanks to a DNF from Sergio Pérez and a P6 from Verstappen — and Ferrari moved 32 points closer to Red Bull atop the Constructors’ Championship standings.
As the grid shifted to Montreal the Scuderia trailed Red Bull by just 24 points, and the talk of a true title fight was on.
Thoughts of a title fight remain, but Ferrari has not helped themselves in recent weeks. A disastrous Canadian Grand Prix for the team saw the team leave Montreal without any points to show for their efforts, and with Leclerc finishing fifth in Barcelona, and Sainz sixth, they have seen Red Bull pull away from them a bit in the standings. Currently, Ferrari sits 60 points behind Red Bull, the gap having more than doubled in recent weeks.
And while Ferrari would love to look ahead, McLaren is now just 33 points behind them, having cut their 68-point deficit to Ferrari following the Monaco Grand Prix by over half.
Here’s what that movement looks like in graphic form, thanks to our friends at Formula1Points:
If you are listing teams in the field that need a bounce-back performance in Austria, Ferrari might just top the list.
What about the back of the pack?
Returning to our friends at Formula1Points, if you look at the standings at the back of the F1 field you might see something interesting:
Alpine? We owe you an apology, we were not really familiar with your game.
Okay, so perhaps apologies are not in order, but it is certainly noteworthy that the team backmarker team having the most success over the past two race weekends is the French-based outfit. While Visa Cash App RB F1 Team managed to leave Montreal with four points thanks to an eighth-place finish from Daniel Ricciardo, back-to-back double-points results from Alpine has seen them add six points to their account, as opposed to the four from VCARB.
Which has seen Alpine climb to seventh in the Constructors’ Championship standings.
Can Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly keep Alpine’s momentum going in Austria? Can VCARB deliver a bounce-back performance of their own? Will Sauber finally break through with points? What about Haas and Williams, can they shock the field in the Austrian hills?
Driver news?
Here is one last storyline as the grid heads to Red Bull Ring.
Is this the week we finally — mercifully? — hear news about Carlos Sainz’s future?
Rumors flew through the paddock as well as the entire F1 world that an announcement on where Sainz would land for 2025 was imminent. Even drivers such as Kevin Magnussen, who is facing his own uncertain F1 future, pointed to Sainz as the “cork in the bottle” regarding the 2025 driver market. But a wrench was thrown into those plans in the form of Flavio Briatore, who recently joined Alpine as an advisor and reportedly made a last-ditch effort to woo Sainz to the French team for next season.
Those talks likely bore little fruit, given yesterday’s news that both Mick Schumacher and Jack Doohan were set to test for Alpine in the coming days, meaning that we may finally hear from Sainz on where his F1 story will be written next.
Frustration seemed the theme of the moment following the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix.
Lando Norris was certainly among those drivers feeling some frustration. Despite his second-place finish, Norris was left to wonder what might have been after a slow start opened the door for Max Verstappen to capture yet another Grand Prix win. Speaking immediately after the race Norris told David Coulthard trackside that he “should have” won, and that frustration followed the McLaren driver to the FIA Press Conference, where he outlined how he had “the quickest car,” but did not do a “good enough” job in the race.
Norris was not the only driver frustrated.
Over at Ferrari, the frustration was evident in the words of both drivers. While the Scuderia bounced back with a double-points finish after coming away empty-handed in Montreal, scoring a P5 for Charles Leclerc and a P6 for Carlos Sainz Jr., they lacked the pace to challenge further up the field. Add to that an early-race incident between the teammates, and you have frustration, despite the double-points result.
The incident in question came on the fourth lap, and you can review it for yourself here:
Sainz, with DRS enabled, gets a good run on Leclerc down the long straight and into Turn 1 and then pulls out of the slipstream to the outside. Leclerc goes a bit wide to get defensive, but Sainz maintains his position on the outside racing line. That’s when the two SF-24s come together, with Leclerc making contact with the right rear of Sainz’s car.
In the moment Leclerc told his team that Sainz “closed on me,” while Sainz told his team that Leclerc “forced me off,” and that Leclerc’s contact with Sainz’s right rear tire was evidence that he was “clearly ahead.”
Following the race, both drivers addressed the incident in question.
“Too many times after the race he [Leclerc] complains about something. Honestly, at this point of the season, I was on the attack,” said Sainz to Sky Sports F1. “We were on a used soft [tire]. I passed Charles… I don’t know if he made a mistake or was just managing a bit too much. I think I was trying to do what was required as a driver. He elected to manage more.”
On the other side of the garage Leclerc initially downplayed the incident but then elaborated on why Sainz might have been pushing hard at that point of the race.
“It’s okay. We will have a discussion, obviously. I’m sure everything will be fine,” began Leclerc. “We discussed beforehand that it was the part of the race where we had to manage the [tires] as much as possible.”
The Monegasque driver then continued his assessment.
“Carlos took that opportunity to overtake, which is a shame as that put us on the back foot and damaged my front wing. It was a small damage but everything makes a difference. When you see how close we were at the end it’s a shame,” added Leclerc. “I understand it’s his home race and a very important moment of his career and he wanted to do something spectacular but I was probably not the right person to do that with.”
Leclerc then turned his frustration to the SF-24.
“We tried everything,” continued Leclerc. “I don’t think we maximised our race as a team. We are missing pace but it is the way it is. We weren’t fast enough.”
In the team’s post-race report both drivers, as well as Team Principal Frederic Vasseur, did their best to downplay the incident and turn their attention to the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix, which gets underway in less than a week.
“It was tight today and we were just a lap short of fighting for P4, but our competitors were still ahead in terms of pace. Regarding our strategy, I think we did well to offset ourselves from the cars around us,” said Sainz. “We maybe lost some time between our two cars at the beginning of the race, but going forward we will focus on our race pace extracting the maximum from our package at the next race.”
“It was a difficult race but we gave it our best. Stopping early and finishing the race on the Hard [tire] didn’t turn out to be the optimal strategy today, but we only know this with hindsight after the chequered flag,” reported Sainz. “In any case, we were lacking a bit of pace this weekend in general and we need to work to improve for next weekend in Austria.”
According to Vasseur, the problems began on Saturday, and the team needs to do a better job in qualifying going forward.
“We started five and six and ended five and six and the conclusion I draw from this is that we must do a better job in qualifying. We need to make a small step forward so that we don’t start behind, as this pushes you into taking risks with the strategy,” described Vasseur. “Yesterday the gap to those in front was about two-tenths, today it was similar and if you look at it over the race distance then that was still the same gap.
“As for the contact between our drivers, it was very light and I don’t think it cost us anything. What cost us more is that after our stops, we came out behind some cars, it was very tight and we lost two or three seconds. With Carlos we wanted to cover Russell, which is why we had to go Medium-Hard as we pitted earlier,” continued Vasseur. “With Charles the plan was to extend the stint to go a bit longer which is why we were able to try the Softs.”
The Ferrari boss is not prone to panicking and believes that Red Bull Ring will provide fertile ground for points next weekend.
“With such small gaps between the teams, everything can change: there are four teams in two to two and a half tenths so from track to track the pecking order can change,” concluded Vasseur. “Next week we race in Austria where we will have another Sprint and I expect the track layout there will suit us better.”
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