F1 Austrian Grand Prix Wrap: Leclerc Passes Verstappen Three Times and Wins

Phillip Horton

July 10, 2022 at 2:40 PM·9 min read

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Charles Leclerc claimed his first F1 victory in three months, beating Max Verstappen, while Haas had its best Formula 1 event in four years. Autoweek rounds up the main talking points from the Austrian Grand Prix:

Leclerc Kicks Bad Luck to the Curb

Few would have expected that after winning in Australia it would be another eight races before Charles Leclerc savored the Monegasque and Italian anthems from the top step of the Formula 1 podium.

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After a run of reliability setbacks, personal errors and strategic blunders meant he hadn’t even visited the podium places since May’s Miami Grand Prix, Leclerc finally notched his fifth career win, and on Red Bull’s home turf no less.

Leclerc passed pole sitter Verstappen on three occasions during the course of the 71-lap Grand Prix. The first was a brilliantly opportunistic move into Turn 4 while the other two were simpler DRS-assisted affairs as their opposing strategies gave Leclerc a sizeable tire advantage.

However, Ferrari rarely wins without drama, and so it was the case on Sunday. A throttle issue afflicted Leclerc during the closing stages and he battled to alleviate the problem amid increasingly panicky radio traffic between driver and pit wall. It effectively left Leclerc with the throttle still on about 20-30% through the corners, but he was able to keep a charging Verstappen at bay during the closing stages to win by 1.5 seconds

“I definitely needed it, of course whenever I get to a new race I have a smile on my face and kept being optimistic but hard races after hard races it felt like everything was against me,” said Leclerc. “Finally we had a breakthrough, and it feels great to have the win.”

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Leclerc described the late throttle issue as “very stressful” before explaining that “it was very inconsistent—and in the corner it would get stuck a bit. Turn 3 was very tricky as that’s where you don’t want any more mid-speed corner, mainly slow-speed corners it was tough to manage but we managed to get the car to the end which is great.”

In front of a partisan support, with the track shrouded in orange mist in the opening stages, Verstappen had to settle for second-best. Despite losing out to Leclerc he still departs Austria, and the mid-point of the 2022 season, with a healthy 38-point advantage over the Ferrari driver in the championship.

“I expected (Ferrari) to be strong—not this good—and we were a bit down on what we expected today,” said Verstappen, who still had a good weekend thanks to his win in the Saturday Sprint race. “On any tire I was struggling a lot for pace after a few laps, lots of deg, something I cannot really explain right now as normally we are quite okay on the tires. I expected it to be tough, but not like this, so it’s something we need to analyse and understand.

“But even on a bad day to only lose five points over a whole weekend is still good.”

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It's Game Over for Perez, Sainz

Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz already had slim title aspirations heading into the Austrian GP weekend, based on their 2022 performance compared to their respective teammates, as well as the overall points picture.

In Austria their prospects took a hammer blow as neither reached the finish of the Grand Prix.

Perez was effectively out after just a handful of corners; he was punted into the gravel by George Russell, for which the Mercedes driver was penalized, and re-joined almost a lap down in a wounded car. Red Bull eventually retired him, and that leaves him 57 points behind Verstappen.

Sainz was on the cusp of passing the tire-limited Verstappen for second when the engine in his F1-75 let go. Sainz parked on an incline and there was a worrying moment when he tried to prevent it from rolling back down all while the fire engulfed the car. Fortunately a marshal intervened and Sainz was unharmed but it was another mechanical setback for Ferrari and for his own ambitions it was a giant comedown off the back of his Silverstone win seven days previously. Sainz is now 75 points down. That, fans, is game over.

Mercedes Salvages Another Strong Result

Mercedes ended Friday with both cars in bits after separate accidents during qualifying for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. It prompted team boss Toto Wolff to quip that Mercedes’ garage looked as if someone had dropped a Lego car.

The drivers repaid the hard work put in by their mechanics. Hamilton recovered from eighth on the grid to finish on the podium for a third successive event while Russell trailed home in fourth, following a penalty for clashing with Sergio Perez. Mercedes remains adrift of Red Bull and Ferrari on pure pace, and the Constructors’ title is out of reach, but gradually the W13 is emerging as a potential contender.

“We always seem to be in two minds at the end of the races right now,” said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. “We must accept P3 and P4 today. And when you think we had two cars in pieces on Friday afternoon, that's a strong result. But we are missing the two or three tenths to be able to race at the front.

"We have glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel with the car - then it disappears again, and we need to get on top of that. Today, over a race stint, we looked more competitive than yesterday. But we had two drivers needing to put in strong recovery drives, after incidents in the Sprint and in the opening laps. Now we need to work on the car to close the gap to the teams ahead, then see how we can get in the mix.”

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Haas’ Bonanza as Schumacher Shines

After scoring double points at Silverstone Haas backed up that result with its strongest Formula 1 weekend as a team since racing at the same venue in 2018.

Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher were seventh and ninth respectively in Sprint, giving the Dane two points, though Schumacher was frustrated at being overtaken by Lewis Hamilton after losing the DRS from his team-mate. He felt that Magnussen should have remained closer, giving him the overtaking aid, to help him in his Hamilton fight. Straight-talking Haas boss Guenther Steiner firmly stated in the aftermath that the team’s strategy was correct as it secured points for Magnussen, rather than risk Hamilton passing both.

In the Grand Prix itself, the pair stayed out of trouble, executed a straightforward two-stop strategy, and dutifully played the team game. Schumacher cleanly passed Magnussen for position and while they were ultimately split by Lando Norris it meant Schumacher recorded his best Formula 1 finish in sixth.

Magnussen backed him up in eighth place, despite having to manage a power unit issue. Added to the Sprint points and it gave Haas a haul of 14 to take away from its trip to Austria, its second-best team result in its 133-race history, and lifted it above AlphaTauri and into seventh in the standings.

“It was tough out there but it’s another double-points finish again after Silverstone, so everyone in the team can be very happy about the result,” said Schumacher. “Being voted driver of the day as well is great so thank you to everybody!”

Added Magnussen: “What a weekend for our team, it’s really been great. Finally, we had a bit of luck, it kind of went our way after those four or five races recently that weren’t good for us. It’s hard not to get a little bit down about it but the last two races we’ve been lucky and we’ve had the pace, especially this weekend.”

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American Sargeant on a Roll in F2

American Logan Sargeant followed up his maiden Formula 2 Feature Race victory at Silverstone with another win in the big-points race at the Red Bull Ring. He did it in a bizarrely roundabout way.

On a wet-but-drying track, following heavy rain overnight, the front-runners all took on wet tires for the start but it swiftly became clear that slicks where the better tire. That shook up the order once the leaders pitted, leaving Sargeant near the back, but on slick tires he charged forwards and came across the line in fourth position.

That was already a strong result, but he was immediately promoted to third when second-placed Roberto Merhi was handed a time penalty for exceeding track limits, dropping him behind Sargeant. Third became second when original winner Richard Verschoor was disqualified for being unable to provide the mandatory fuel sample. And second became first when Jehan Daruvala was penalized after his team tried to dry his grid spot prior to the start, which is against the rules.

Sargeant is now second in the Formula 2 standings, 39 points behind Felipe Drugovich, having out-scored the Brazilian by 36 points across the last three rounds.

“It’s not the way I like to pick up a race win, but points are points,” said Sargeant, who revealed prior to his promotion that he was “coming through like a train for the first half of my stint! I was angry, I stayed angry, and that helped me get up the field—sometimes angry can be good.”

Sargeant, after a modest start to his Formula 2 season, is very much in contention for the championship.