McLaren Dominate With 1-2 Finish In Austria

After a gap of 25 years, McLaren has finished first and second in the Austrian Grand Prix. Back in 2000, the one-two came courtesy of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard, while today, Lando Norris was victorious in Spielberg, taking his seventh career win and his third of this season. Team-mate Oscar Piastri crossed the finish line right on the Englishman’s tail. Rounding off the podium was Charles Leclerc for Ferrari.

This is McLaren’s 197th win, the eighth this season and the seventh at this race. Spielberg is proving to be the track that suits Norris best in F1: one win, one pole position, three podium finishes and 108 points scored from nine starts.

Soft and Medium were both seen on the starting grid. Five drivers (Gasly, Colapinto, Bearman, Hadjar and Hulkenberg) drove the first stint on the C5, while the other 15 went with the C4.

As the race evolved, naturally the Hard also came into play, with Ocon using both his sets of C3, having started on the Medium. His Haas team-mate, Oliver Bearman, the only other driver with two sets of Hards available, actually crossed the finish line on a set of Mediums. The English Haas driver, along with France’s Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bulls and Aston Martin’s Canadian driver Lance Stroll, were the three drivers who used all three compounds. Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg was the only driver never to have used the hardest compound available in Spielberg.

The race distance was reduced by one lap, after the start was aborted because Carlos Sainz in the Williams was left immobile on the grid on the formation lap. The longest stint overall was down to Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) who drove 41 laps on the Hard. As for the Medium, Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) takes the prize with 33 laps. The Spaniard and New Zealander Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) planned to make just one pit stop and they both finished in the points.

Lando Norris – P1

“I’m very happy with the result, a 1-2 is the perfect finish for us as a team. Oscar and I had a great battle, which was a lot of fun, and we were able to maximise the pace of the car and the strategy.

“Thanks to the team for the upgrades and all of their work to get us to a place where the car was able to pull away. Now, onto my favourite weekend of the year, Silverstone.”

Oscar Piastri – P2

“That was an intense race. I’m happy we’ve come away with a 1-2 after some really good racing. After a solid start, I was close to the win, but it was tough to make progress to close the gap again after the first stop.

“A big thank you to the team for the great car they’ve given us. To have the pace to pull away from the field whilst battling each other was impressive, and something we can be proud of. Now, onto Silverstone.”

Charles Leclerc – P3

“I rate our weekend as a team really well. We brought some upgrades which helped us to take a step forward and start closing the gap to McLaren. Unfortunately, they were just faster today.
In the first corner, I wanted to close in on Lando (Norris), but that left the door open for Oscar (Piastri) who was able to pass me for second place. I pushed a lot on the first stint and had quite a bit of degradation, but that’s part of the game. We don’t have any regrets today. We gave it everything and extracted the maximum from our race. We will continue to work hard to make more progress with the aim of getting back onto the top step of the podium. That’s our main priority and the whole team deserves it.”

Mario Isola – Pirelli Director of Motorsport

“The first race weekend in the height of summer saw our tyres behave as expected, both yesterday in qualifying and today in the race. Over 70 laps run in very high temperatures – the track varied between 52 and 55 °C – degradation across the three compounds was higher than during Friday free practice, when temperatures were between 15 and 20 °C lower, however not by a significant amount.

“All three compounds proved they could play their part, both at the start, with five drivers choosing the C5 for the first stint, while Stroll tried to do something different, fitting it with about 15 laps remaining. As expected, the two-stop was the quickest strategy, but those who tried the one-stop proved to be pretty competitive, to the extent of finishing in the top ten. In terms of performance, the Hard and Medium proved to be quite similar, while the Soft was competitive in the opening laps, but then obviously dropped off, starting from around laps 7 and 8.

“Now we head for Silverstone, a track that is always very hard on tyres. We have chosen a trio of dry weather compounds that is a step softer than in the past (C2, C3 and C4) and we are keen to see how they will perform and what effect this will have on race strategy.”