Most were once again expected for the Mercedes team to dominate by taking home the most points at the Austrian F1 GP. However, with Hamilton in fifth lace and Bottas in third, we see some of the other significant teams make their way to the podium.
Even with Mercedes not finishing at the top, they still managed to stack up a rather impressive number of points. Therefore, it would be somewhat unrealistic for Ferrari and Red Bull fans to start thinking their teams have the opportunity to grab the 2019 season win. However, it’s still great to see them compete for the second-place finish and give Mercedes hell as they try to remain at the top.
Below, we look at some of the highlights for the top 5 finishers in the Austrian GP and see how the Mercedes team failed to do what they’ve been doing the whole of 2019.
How it Happened
For those who watched the qualifying for the Austrian GP, you’ll already know Mercedes weren’t in first and second position as per usual. Instead, we saw a Ferrari and Red Bull claim the first two sports followed by both Mercedes.
While Charles Leclerc manages to get a great start and already pull a lead ahead of the rest by the first turn, the same couldn’t be fair for Vettel who found himself in 7th by the first corner. Even Max Verstappen in the Red Bull got off to a bad start, appearing in 6th by turn one.
By the fourth lap, Charles managed to get ahead by over two seconds with Bottas behind him. Hamilton was in third place and a total of 4.090 seconds behind Leclerc. Amazingly, both Vettel and Verstappen were still trying to recover from their poor start as they appear in sixth and seventh place.
By lap seven, we finally saw Vettel make his way up the board to fourth place, but still more than 10 seconds behind his teammate in the first place. Max Verstappen even appeared in seventh place with a rather large 12 seconds and six drivers between him and first place. However, just two laps later Verstappen moved to sixth place by overtaking Raikkonen.
On lap 30, we saw Hamilton having to go through the tips again for an issue on the front wing, which cost him a lot of time. By lap 50, we saw Hamilton in fifth place while Vettel made his way up to third with Bottas between the Ferrari drivers. Even Max Verstappen managed to make it up to the fourth place. On the same lap, Verstappen managed to score yet another place by overtaking Vettel. By lap 56, Verstappen complained about the loss of power, but that didn’t stop him from getting past Bottas for second place.
It was not until lap 69 that Verstappen managed to get past Leclerc and claim first place for the Red Bull team. On the second last lap, Vettel overtook Hamilton and moved up to the fourth place for the Ferrari team.