Exceeding All Limits
Breaking down the Canada and Austria Grand Prixes.
Montreal, Canada
Quick Canada recap before I get into Austria.
It was a rainy weekend in Montreal, with two practice sessions and all of qualifying affected by the weather. Free Practice (FP) 1 was dry, but after the session was red-flagged for Pierre Gasly who had some mechanical issues early on, it never resumed due to issues with the track cameras and CCTV. FP2 was extended to 90 minutes to make up for this.
There were a couple more red flags in FP2, as the other Alpine (Esteban Ocon) dealt with mechanical issues as well. The rain came into play in torrents near the end of the session, which Hamilton topped, and continued through FP3. According to Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas, it was “good weather…for a duck.” Unfortunately for Ferrari, Sainz hit the wall hard in FP3, severely damaging his front wing and nose (the car’s, not his - Sainz has a mighty fine nose, see insert).
Rain and red flags continued to hamper the weekend with the drivers starting on inters at the beginning of qualifying before switching to slicks once the track dried out and then back to inters by the last part of the session.
Ferrari CONTINUED to struggle with communication issues on track and seems to have forgotten YET AGAIN that they need to keep their drivers apprised of the cars around them. They didn’t. This led to YET ANOTHER impeding incident during qualifying, much to Pierre Gasly’s (Alpine) chagrin. The incident was costly for both Ferrari and Gasly as Gasly was knocked out in Q1 and Sainz received a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race, dropping him from eighth to 11th.
The rain always mixes up the grid, which makes things more interesting come Sunday. This was true in Canada, with some big names out of the top 10 (Leclerc, Perez, and Stroll) and Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) ALMOST starting from P2 (go Haas!). Hulkenberg received an after-the-fact three-place grid penalty for speeding under red light restrictions, dropping him to P5 behind both Mercedes and bringing Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) up to take his place.
Unfortunately for all the Max haters (☺), he’s also unbeatable in rainy conditions, so no surprise that he took pole.
On Sunday, Max got off the line well and Hamilton was able to slipstream his way past Alonso into P2. Max is clearly in a league of his own, so the battles for the remaining podium spots, and the points positions, are what to watch for. George “Lap One Incident” Russell (Mercedes) made it all the way to Lap 12 before driving into a wall out of Turn 9, triggering a safety car. The team was able to get him fixed up and back out on track after a long stop, but he later retired from the race with brake issues.
Lando Norris was given a five-second time penalty for “unsportsmanlike behavior” because the FIA/F1 is trying to pull in NFL fans by using their lingo. In all seriousness though, this penalty was talked about quite a bit as it is rarely used. The penalty was based on Norris driving unnecessarily slowly under the safety car, creating a gap between he and his teammate Oscar Piastri so they could double stack in the pits, and subsequently backing up the rest of the pack in the process. McLaren petitioned for a right of review over this penalty (which cost Norris a points place finish) but it was ultimately rejected by the stewards.
Ferrari made a good strategy call for once in their life and brought home fourth and fifth-place finishes. (Ed: I have it on good authority Ferrari is now feeding strategy calls directly to ChatGPT). Max, Alonso, and Lewis were the podium finishers, in that order, with 11 world titles between the three of them, no big deal. The battle between Alonso and Lewis was fun to watch. Max’s win was actually special in Canada, as he brought home Red Bull’s 100th win and his 41st, tying the late, great Ayrton Senna. Max signed his suit from this race and auctioned it off for charity along with a meet and greet and tour of the Red Bull factory. My brother wouldn’t loan me the money to bid which I found rude considering it was clearly a great use of resources and someone else took home the suit for the low price of $142,746. (Ed: Maybe Red Bull’s catering department can loan you the difference).
Here are links to the full qualifying and race results so you can check out how your favorite driver did in Canada.
Spielberg, Austria (Here’s Lookin’ at you, Lando!).
We’re back at the Red Bull Ring in Austria with another Sprint weekend! If you need a quick refresh on the Sprint format you can take a look at my coverage of the first Sprint in Baku here.
Tl;dr:
Max was first in qualifying.
Max was first in the sprint shootout.
Max won the sprint.
Max won the Grand Prix.
Lando Norris had a really strong weekend thanks to new upgrades and walked away with his highest finish this season – fourth.
Everyone and their mother exceeded track limits.
Friday: Qualifying (for Sunday)
Ferrari and McLaren both introduced new upgrades this weekend, which were clearly effective in qualifying. Ferrari debuted a new front wing and changes to the floor edges, while McLaren rolled out the first of a three-part upgrade with a revised floor and sidepods. McLaren was initially set to bring these upgrades in Silverstone but fast-tracked them for Lando Norris’ car, contributing to his strong running in qualifying that put him in P4 for Sunday’s race.
The Ferrari upgrades that everyone has been looking for the past two races seem to have made an appearance, giving us a much-missed Ferrari sandwich for Sunday’s race start. Sainz put together a strong qualifying session and got himself onto the second row for Sunday, starting in front of Lando, his former teammate. Leclerc looked incredibly quick on his last flying lap (as he always does in quali), and for a split second seemed like he might beat out Max for pole. But alas, the Flying Dutchman took pole at his home race for the fourth consecutive time (*gasp*). [Although there was a minute there where his pole was in jeopardy when he was summoned to the stewards after the session for impeding Kevin Magnussen in Q1. They determined no further action was necessary and he kept pole position.] [Ed: Oh hello again, Max “No further action is necessary” Verstappen].
Unfortunately for Red Bull, Checo continued to struggle in qualifying. For the fourth time in as many races, he failed to get through Q2 and started 15th on Sunday. While Checo wasn’t the only one to struggle with track limits in Austria (I’ll talk more about this later), his inability to pull off a clean lap when it mattered highlights the gap in talent between him and his teammate. Team Principal Christian Horner laid into Checo a bit after the session stating to Sky Sports F1, “He’s got a car that was easily capable of being on the first or second row, he was matching Max’s times; stay in the white lines.” Perhaps that could have been a private conversation, Christian?
For those who don’t know, there is a white line around the outside of the race track that delineates where the limits of the track are. If a car goes over this white line with all four tires this is considered exceeding track limits. If a car exceeds track limits, its lap time is deleted. In a race, if a car exceeds track limits three times, they are shown a black and white flag and warned if they exceed track limits again, they will receive a five-second time penalty.
A total of 47 lap times were deleted during this year’s qualifying session.
Unfortunately for everyone, qualifying was only the beginning.
Saturday: Sprint Shootout (Qualifying for the Sprint)
Norris was quick again in the sprint shootout, snagging a third-place start for the sprint later that day, just in front of Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg (go Haas!). Lewis Hamilton was eliminated in Q1 thanks to a deleted lap time and traffic on his final attempt which forced him to bail out. There were some issues between Max and Hamilton (of course), and Mercedes’ Team Principal Toto Wolff accused Max of enacting a “revenge plot” and deliberately screwing up Hamilton’s final lap due to an earlier incident of impeding. I’m a Max fan to my grave but even I can admit that situation was a bit sketchy. I’m surprised it wasn’t more of a topic this weekend. [Ed: Another rousing triumph for Max “No further action was necessary” Verstappen]
Aston Martin continued a lackluster weekend, with a seventh and eighth-place start for the sprint. Aston seems to be falling off the pace a bit, with the other front runners showing better gains after various upgrades. It may just be track specific, so I’m still holding out hope for Alonso’s “El Plan.”
Saturday: Sprint
The Red Bulls clashed on the first lap of a rain-soaked sprint, with both blaming the other for multiple close calls. They smoothed things over after the race once they both realized the incidents were unintentional (not convinced Perez didn’t see Max, but I digress). This little rivalry gave Hulkenberg an opening and he snuck through into second (go Haas!), where he remained through Lap 12 before Checo overtook him.
Unfortunately for Norris (again), he started second and dropped to 10th within the first lap after he went into anti-stall in the first corner. Mercedes had decent damage control, with Russell coming back from 15th to eighth to claim the last points position, and Hamilton recovering from eighteenth to tenth.
Sunday: Grand Prix
Sunday’s race began cleanly and everything looked well and good, with Leclerc giving Max a good run for first before Max inevitably pulled away. The race itself was clean, with no major racing incidents and only one retirement (Hulkenberg with an engine failure). There were some excellent scraps in the mid to upper-field. Checo put in a great race (much needed given his recent struggles) and came back from fifteenth place to snag the last podium spot away from Carlos Sainz.
The good times didn’t last though, as the track positions began to descend into chaos when the stewards started doling out track limit warnings and penalties aplenty. A total of SEVEN drivers received time penalties during the race (Hamilton, Tsunoda (x2), Sainz, Magnussen, Sargeant, Albon, and Gasly), further frustrating Hamilton’s already difficult weekend.
Mercedes was back in old form, much to my delight. Lewis struggled with pace almost immediately, radioing in on lap 12 to let his engineer know “This car’s slow mate.” When his team alerted him that he’d received a black-and-white flag for exceeding track limits and would be penalized if it happened again, he responded that he couldn’t keep it on the track because the car wouldn’t turn. So clearly some additional work’s needed from Mercedes to find the pace they had last weekend. Lewis ended up receiving two penalties for track limits, one during the race and one after, which dropped him from seventh to eighth.
The penalties Lewis and others received after the race was courtesy of a protest lodged by Aston Martin, who claimed that a number of cars were not penalized for exceeding track limits but should have been. According to The Race, F1’s policing system was overwhelmed with over 1,200+ potential offenses (some suggest it was closer to 1,500) and race control was unable to keep up with the violations during the race. Aston Martin requested race control review of each of the potential violations.
After three hours, the stewards released a document identifying each lap that was deleted due to track limit violations. (You can view the document here, by clicking the link and selecting the document titled, “Race Deleted Lap Times.”) 83 more laps were deleted after this review, leaving only George Russell and Zhou Guanyu without a violation. Eight drivers received post-race penalties, six of which were knocked down the order:
Sainz: 10-second penalty, dropped from fourth to sixth
Hamilton: 10-second penalty, dropped from seventh to eighth
Gasly: 10-second penalty, dropped from ninth to 10th
Esteban Ocon: 30-second penalty (two five-second penalties and two 10-second penalties), dropped from 12th to 14th
Nyck de Vries: 15-second penalty (one five-second penalty and one 10-second penalty), dropped from 15th to 17th; and
Yuki Tsunoda: five-second penalty, dropped from 18th to 19th.
In addition to applying the penalties above, the stewards noted that they “very strongly recommend that a solution be found to the track limits situation at this circuit.” I very strongly agree. Which begs the question, how? Seems best to go back to the old policy that was more flexible and allowed for leniency, especially in the final turns.
It was yet another dominant weekend for Red Bull on their home turf. To further underscore how confident they are as a team, Max decided to pit on the last lap of the race for new tires so he could go for the fastest lap and get one extra point. After a 2.3-second stationary pit stop (excluding the time through the pit lane), he came back out still 4 seconds ahead of Leclerc. Unstoppable, yet again.
There are four races over the next five weekends! Next up is the iconic Silverstone circuit. Let’s see if anyone can de-throne the King.
Here are links to the full qualifying, sprint, and race results so you can check out how your favorite driver did in Austria.
On a final, tragic note: 18-year-old Dutch driver Dilano Van ‘t Hoff was killed this weekend at Spa, a famous Belgian circuit that’s a regular stop on the Formula One calendar. Van ‘t Hoff was competing at the Formula Regional European Championship. He spun in heavy rain and was struck at high speed by another driver. It’s only been four years since the last fatality at Spa, when Anthoine Hubert was killed in a multi-car crash during an F2 race, along the same stretch of track. There are serious questions about safety at Spa, and frankly, no one should be losing their life racing - not with today’s technology. I don’t know what reforms are needed, but I do know they’re overdue.
Rest in peace, Dilano.
