Half a year after Formula 1’s last race, the 2020 season finally got underway in Austria with non-stop drama.
Valtteri Bottas took the first win of the 2020 season from Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris in what was an unpredictable race of attrition.
The chaos didn’t wait for the start as, just 40 minutes before lights-out, Lewis Hamilton was demoted from second to fifth for failing to slow for yellow flags in qualifying on his final run.
Red Bull submitted a 360-onboard camera angle from the no44 car that race stewards had not seen on Saturday. The penalty moved Verstappen into second before he’d even sat in the car on race day.
The six-month wait for a return to racing finally ended and Bottas held his lead comfortably away from pole. Behind him, the field came cleanly through Turn One despite any rustiness that might have accrued in the break.
Bottas leads into Turn One from pole
Antonin Vincent / DPPI
Albon got his elbows out at Turn Four to keep Hamilton behind on the opening tour, memories of Interlagos not too distant a memory. One lap later and he was by Norris for third position with Hamilton dispatching of the McLaren just a handful of corners after.
As Bottas stretched the lead in front, by lap seven Hamilton trailed his team-mate by eight seconds. The Mercedes in fourth was not letting the gap extend out too far, and he made a DRS pass on Albon in Turn Four for third.
Ferrari’s miserable weekend continued in the opening stages, lapping over a second down on the lead Mercedes, Leclerc sixth and Vettel ninth.
Verstappen’s hopes of a 2019 repeat ground to a halt on lap 14 as he lost power in his RB16. The first in what would be a lengthy list of retirements, as issues started to show.
While Sergio Perez was looking strong in fifth, team-mate Lance Stroll was dealing with an engine issue down in eighth.
Verstappen was a solid third on medium tyres until he lost power in the early laps
Antonin Vincent / DPPI
Daniel Ricciardo was the next big name to suffer a cooling issue. A promising start had him fighting for a top 10 position until his R.S.20 slowed and he was forced into retirement as a precaution.
Having lost positions to Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly, Stroll had to retire his car on lap 22 with sensor issues.
Hamilton had been 7.5sec off the lead when Verstappen had retired but the reigning champion had clawed that down to 3.8sec by lap 25.
Kevin Magnussen suffered a spin at Turn Three after an apparent brake failure. The Haas was pitched into a sudden spin under braking and nestled into the barriers, bringing out the safety car.
Mercedes immediately sprang into action, double-stacking their cars with a 13sec cushion over third-place man Albon to retain a one-two.
The rest of the soft-tyre runners made their stops in a crowded pitlane; Perez’s Racing Point being released alongside the McLaren of Norris, with thankfully no contact.
Racing resumed on lap 30 with all of the field on hard tyres bar Perez. Next year’s Ferrari team-mates, Carlos Sainz and Leclerc, immediately started to scrap heading up the hill to Turn Three. An optimistic lunge by the following Sebastian Vettel resulted in contact with his replacement and a clumsy spin, putting Vettel down to 15th.
After their near-miss in the pitlane, Perez put his Racing Point ahead of Norris for fourth place into Turn Four.
The Mercedes duo had eased away from the rest in a showing reminiscent of the early hybrid era days. Hamilton had moved to within DRS range by the time it was reactivated following the safety car but couldn’t close to within 0.5sec.
A radio call informed Hamilton the Merc pair would have their engines turned down at some point, creating a sense of urgency for the second-place car.
A separate call was made to Bottas of “Urgent: Chassis default 2-1” as Hamilton had begun to seek out cooler air in the tow of his team-mate.
A follow-up confirmed a sensor issue was apparent on both cars as both drivers were told to stay off the kerbs over gearbox reliability fears and by lap 47, the drivers were told that the situation was “critical”.
Mercedes cars were ordered to stay off the bumpy kerbs as they nursed the cars home
Antonin Vincent / DPPI
George Russell had been looking good in 12th position until reliability hit his Williams, forcing retirement and bringing out the second safety car of the afternoon. Simultaneously, Grosjean retired his car.
Red Bull opted to bring in Albon, Ferrari boxed Leclerc and McLaren pitted its drivers as the two Mercedes and Perez remained out.
The move dropped Albon to fourth but on fresh softs, with Norris, Leclerc, Gasly, Ocon, Sainz, and Giovinazzi in the top 10 as racing commenced once more.
No sooner had the field returned to racing speed on lap 55 when another safety car was deployed after a tyre came loose from Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo. The brief resumption of the race had allowed Albon to pass Perez and lurk behind the ailing Mercedes cars in a podium place.
The fresh soft tyres on the Red Bull gave him a perfect restart. At Turn Four, he passed Hamilton on the outside, but his rear tyre clipped Hamilton’s front and he was pitched into the gravel, ending his hopes of a podium finish and earning Hamilton a five second penalty.
Leclerc snatched fourth from Norris on lap 64, pulling off the same move but without contact and set about chasing down Perez.
Two laps later and he was by the Racing Point, a late dive down the inside up the hill into T3 put him into the podium places. Perez’s afternoon was made immediately worse as he received a five-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane.
The drama kept on coming as the laps ticked down. With three-laps remaining, Norris forced his way by Perez and set about closing the 5.1sec to Hamilton to within the five second penalty that would be applied after the race.
As more retirements came — for Albon and Kvyat — Norris set a fastest lap on the final tour, to secure his first F1 podium by a few tenths-of-a-second over Hamilton.
2020 Austrian Grand Prix results
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Points |
| 1 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1hr 30min 55.739sec | 25 |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +2.7sec | 18 |
| 3 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +5.491sec | 16* |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +5.689sec | 12** |
| 5 | Carlos Sainz | McLaren | +8.903sec | 10 |
| 6 | Sergio Perez | Racing Point | +15.092sec | 8** |
| 7 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | +16.682sec | 6 |
| 8 | Esteban Ocon | Renault | +17.456sec | 4 |
| 9 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | +21.146sec | 2 |
| 10 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | +24.545sec | 1 |
| 11 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | +31.650sec | |
| Daniil Kvyat | AlphaTauri | DNF | ||
| Alex Albon | Red Bull | DNF | ||
| Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo | DNF | ||
| Romain Grosjean | Haas | DNF | ||
| George Russell | Williams | DNF | ||
| Kevin Magnussen | Haas | DNF | ||
| Lance Stroll | Racing Point | DNF | ||
| Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | DNF | ||
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | DNF |
*Additional point for fastest lap
**Includes five-second penalty applied at the end of the race
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July 05, 2020 at 10:42PM
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