Charles Leclerc is second and Lando Norris thirdLewis Hamilton suffers dramatic late-racing demotionIncident, spectacle, drama, tension:
Formula One could not have asked for a better season opener at the Austrian
Grand Prix. The
Coronavirus may have ensured there were no fans at the Red Bull Ring to witness the grand theatre but it can be assured they would have been thrilled by racing that ebbed and flowed, down to the final lap’s last tenth of a second. Valtteri Bottas took the flag for Mercedes from pole but was only one player in a grand cast.
He was joined by a disappointed
Lewis Hamilton, whose day ran like some violent rollercoaster, from a grid penalty pre-race to challenging for the lead to another late punishment demoting him from second to fourth, after a clash with Red Bull’s Alexander Albon. As if scripted, Albon is the same driver with whom he had collided in
Brazil last year – three races ago in the pandemic-adjusted timeline. Then there was McLaren’s Lando Norris, the 20-year-old
British driver in only his second season in F1, who made his first podium in third by delivering the fastest lap of the race on the final lap, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, pulling out the most unlikely second from seventh on the grid in what he described as one of the best races of his career.