Max Verstappen put on a masterclass to win the Styrian Grand Prix and extend his Championship lead. Less of a masterclass is our 2021 Styrian Grand Prix Result Review + Great and Grape which tries to capture as much of the action as possible.
Our review covers what happened in the race so you don’t have to in the laps that matter. Plus we throw in our Race Ratings, the Best (Great) and Worst (Grape) drivers of the race weekend.
The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered.
The 2021 Styrian Grand Prix Result Review + Great and Grape gives you just enough to catch up, and stand by for our Power Rankings which highlight our driver of the season so far.
2021 Styrian Grand Prix Result – THE LAPS THAT MATTERED
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Well here are the top laps where stuff happened. Normally it is five or ten, so you know it was a good race if there’s more than ten.
We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Lap 0 – How good was the power ballad / anthem for the Styrian Grand Prix.
Lap 1 – The top three get good starts and maintain position by the end of the first lap, which was hardest work for Lando Norris as he came under big pressure from Sergio Perez. Charles Leclerc breaks his front wing and pits. Gasly picks up a puncture and looks likely from contact with Leclerc before he then tangles with Giovinazzi who hits Latifi at the second corner compounding the misery – he later becomes the first retirement . George Russell, Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo are the winners from the first lap
ORDER – VER HAM NOR PER BOT STR ALO RUS RIC TSU
Lap 7 – The field starting to spread out with Max Verstappen two seconds in front of Lewis Hamilton who is four and a bit second in front of Lando Norris who has Sergio Perez on his tail giving him a little nibble.
Lap 8 – Daniel Ricciardo mysteriously drops from 9th to 13th. Much like his qualifying performance in relation to his FP second place, the sudden loss of speed is a mystery and a large concern.
ORDER – VER HAM NOR PER BOT STR ALO RUS TSU SAI
Lap 10 – Sergio Perez gets past Lando Norris for third into turn two and holds him off well into turn three. Bottas also lines up to overtake Norris too. Which he does on lap 11. Lando Norris five seconds in front of the division two race for best of the rest with Stroll next best.
Lap 16 – Fernando Alonso in 7th leading a train of cars behind him that are socially distant down to the Emperor of Disappointment Daniel Ricciardo in 13th. Five seconds covering the cars. Much like trying to get everyone to follow Covid safe rules eventually one driver will do the wrong thing and look like a dickhead.
Lap 22 – Max is expanding his lead by a tenth here or there on Hamilton, and not a great deal of other on track change elsewhere despite the closeness. Need some pitstop badly, it’s getting late in Australia after the beers and excitement of State of Origin.
ORDER – VER HAM PER BOT NOR STR ALO RUS TSU SAI
Lap 26 – George Russell is the first of the interesting cars to pit. Williams practice their Mercedes style pitstop by taking an age in his pitstop like Mercedes did to him in his big race last season. Russell determined to never score points for Williams.
Lap 27 – Red Bull take their new FIA enforced 0.2 second pit stop penalty very seriously with a long pitstop seeing Perez fall behind Bottas.
Lap 29 – Hamilton pits trying to undercut Max Verstappen. It doesn’t work as Max pits and retains lead the next lap.
Lap 30 ish – Lando Norris pits and comes out just in front of Daniel Riccairdo and then quickly overtakes the driver that the Australian has been behind for some time. Ouch for Ricciardo with another shit Sunday on the cards. To go with his nice collection of crap Saturdays.
Lap 39 – George Russell retires his Williams’ probably pondering if he will ever score points for Williams. Daniel Ricciardo is the only driver not to have pit at this stage. He does so on lap 43 and rejoins in 15th to be only better than the Haas cars.
ORDER – VER HAM BOT PER SAI NOR RIC STR ALO TSU
Lap 42 – Race TV directors scrambling to make this race interesting staying with the battle for 13th between Leclerc and Raikkonen. He gets Kimi eventually and tries to drive over the Finn’s front wing in the process. Leclerc passes the other Alfa Romeo of Giovinazzi on lap 46. Decent effort after lap one shenanigans.
Lap 55 – Leclerc is still providing most of the entertainment on track. He clips Alonso on his way past for 8th. Sergio Perez pits from fourth (remains fourth) to perhaps help Leclerc make this race more interesting. A side interest is how many cars Max Verstappen can lap.
ORDER – VER HAM BOT PER NOR SAI STR LEC ALO TSU
Lap 60 – Leclerc get past Lance Stroll for 7th.
Lap 61 – Sergio Perez is catching Valterri Nottas for third, setting up some good late race action.
Lap 66 – It’s easy to forget that Max Verstappen is completely bossing this race. Gap grows from 4 seconds to 15 second towards end of stint. Distracted by the battle for 10th.
Lap 70 – Lewis Hamilton pits with one lap to go to try and seal the fastest lap which is currently held by Perez who is right on Bottas’ tail. Hamilton does get the fastest lap.
Lap 71 – Max Verstappen win the Styrian Grand Prix as easy as he likes. And he likes to completely stop and do a burn out on pit straight. F1 commentator David Croft yells unnecessarily yells through the last lap as Perez catches Bottas. Bloody hell it’s only for a who cares third between the two number twos. Leclerc’s storming catch up drive ends in a solid 7th place. Norris best of the rest in fifth.
FINAL ORDER – VER HAM BOT PER NOR SAI LEC STR ALO TSU
2021 Styrian Grand Prix Result – RACE RATING
We rate the big race itself so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 7/10
This was another big win over Red Bull over Mercedes who look a little beaten and unable to answer for Verstappen’s pace. We’ll see when the F1 circus leaves Austria.
ON TRACK ACTION – 3 /10
There was some good stuff on the first lap. Then some good midfield action, provided mostly by Charles Leclerc, but overall reasonably dull. The occasional pitstop move too didn’t make up the difference either.
ENDING 2 / 10
As above, despite what F1 commentators think, yelling doesn’t make things more exciting. So the battle for third v fourth was of mild interest between Bottas and Perez but not that bloody good. And a last lap fastest lap is meh too.
OVERALL RATING 12 / 30
Hopefully next week’s race is a little better.
2021 SEASON RACE RANKINGS
Bahrain GP – 25/30
Emilia-Romagna GP – 17/30
Portuguese GP – 11/30
Spanish GP – 18/30
Monaco GP – 12/30
Azerbaijan GP – 23/30
French GP – 22/30
2021 Styrian Grand Prix Result – Great & Grape
Here we go through the field and highlight the three drivers we think deserve a little extra love, and one driver whose had the grapest weekend of all.
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. Five points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 / -2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.
THE GREAT-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN
Pole, win, extend championship lead. Boxes ticked for Max Verstappen. And it appears that Red Bull have the fastest car and Mercedes are a little rattled. Was untouchable today.
THE GREAT – CHARLES LECLERC
A broken front wing on the first lap saw his afternoon prospects plummet. However he produced the race’s best drive of the day to power through the field and back up to 7th by race end. Declared driver of the day by fans.
THE GREAT – LANDO NORRIS
Qualified fourth on the grid (started third) and beat his team mate by half a second in the last qualifying session they were both in. His fifth place in the race may appear underwhelming but is still best of the rest and sees him remain in fourth in the Championship overall.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
CARLOS SAINZ – Great drive from the Ferrari driver on alternative strategy getting some good points from 12th on the grid.
YUKI TSUNODA – A point and clean raceday and weekend is good progress after his previous qualifying red flag ruining adventures leading to daily Marko calls.
GEORGE RUSSELL – On track to score points for Williams for the first time, until a bad pit stop which led to retirement.
THE GRAPE-EST – DANIEL RICCIARDO
The great Styrian Grand Prix mystery was how the Australian went from second in Free Practice to almost failing to make it out of Q1 in qualifying. Eventually down on his team mate by plenty in Q2 who ended up fourth in Q3.
Come the race his great start from 13th to 8th was ruined by a power failure which saw all of his gained positions disappear and then he was trapped towards the back just in front of the Haas cars and Latifi.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
VALTTERI BOTTAS – For his spin in pit lane in Practice.
PIERRE GASLY – An incident filled first lap ruined yet another great qualifying performance.
2021 Styrian Grand Prix Result – Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix and the overall 2021 F1 Season Power Rankings leader/s.
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