When Lando Norris avoids making mistakes, he is the fastest driver in Formula 1, in the quickest car on the grid. That proved to be the case in Austria this weekend; pole position by the biggest margin of the season was followed by a dominant race victory despite the McLaren of his team-mate, Oscar Piastri, looming large in his mirrors for much of the opening stint.
After all the trials and tribulations of Norris’s season, and even a retirement in Montreal, the British driver will enter his home grand prix at Silverstone next weekend only 15 points off the drivers’ championship lead.
In Norris’s own words, this does not make up for those struggles, but it does show that when his mistakes are eradicated, he can match — if not exceed — the pace of his Australian team-mate.
Expect many more of these tight battles over the coming races, with Max Verstappen’s hopes ended on the first lap — after Kimi Antonelli collided with him — to all but end the Dutchman’s title challenge. “It looks very much like a two-horse race [between the McLarens],” Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, conceded. Helmut Marko, the team’s senior adviser, was even more direct. “I would say the championship is a write-off,” he said.
It was a disastrous home race for Red Bull, with Yuki Tsunoda in their second car finishing last.
The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished third and fourth respectively. They were comfortably ahead of the rest of the field but nowhere near the pace of the McLarens.
Ferrari did, however, leapfrog Mercedes into second place in the constructors’ championship, and Hamilton felt they had made “mega progress”. He also sent his best wishes to the team principal, Fred Vasseur, who had left Austria before the race for personal reasons.
McLaren say they have been impressed by Norris’s response to crashing into Piastri in Montreal a fortnight ago, and believe he has been on an upward trajectory since claiming pole position in Monaco last month. “The speed has always been there for Lando and we needed to polish a couple of things,” Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal, said.
Norris’s defending even forced the usually unflappable Piastri into an error, causing a flat spot on his tyres with a late move at turn 4, for which he apologised to the team.
“It doesn’t come easily, or just because I turned up this weekend and things are just better,” Norris said. “I’m working a lot. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, honestly. I like to prove things to myself more than anything. It was a lot of fun, and stress.”
There was little fun for Williams. Carlos Sainz’s Austrian Grand Prix was over before it had even begun, with the Spaniard reporting that he was stuck in first gear as he attempted to start the car for the formation lap. Stewards managed to push him off the grid, leading to an aborted start for everyone else, delaying the race by 15 minutes.
The Williams driver told his team it felt as if he was still braking while the car was moving, and as he came to a stop at the end of the pitlane his brakes caught fire. He was given the “game over” message and told to climb out of the car, while James Vowles, the Williams team principal, looked on with his head in his hands. By lap 17, his team-mate, Alex Albon, was out of the race too, with an “issue that needs further investigation”.
Norris’s main difficulty last season was holding on to pole position during the opening lap, but he navigated the delayed start well, with Piastri gaining a position on Leclerc, who had qualified his Ferrari on the front row ahead of the Australian. The yellow flags produced as a result of Pierre Gasly’s late spin in qualifying prevented Piastri from setting a second flying lap.
That also contributed to Verstappen’s joint-worst qualifying performance of the season, in seventh, having to abort a final lap that, Red Bull believed, would have put him on the second row.
His misery was deepened by an incident at turn 3 on the opening lap, when the Mercedes of Antonelli, who had qualified ninth, locked up and, despite the teenager’s best efforts to avoid hitting those around him, crashed into Verstappen, triggering a safety car and retirements for them both.
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Antonelli received a three-place grid penalty for Silverstone, as well as two penalty points on his super licence.
“I’m out, I got hit like crazy. F***ing idiots,” Verstappen said on the radio, before climbing out of his car and waving to the thousands of fans who had travelled to the Red Bull Ring to support him. Antonelli, the 18-year-old rookie, immediately apologised and the pair were soon speaking amicably at the side of the track.
The highest-qualifying and highest-finishing Red Bull driver, at their home race, was in fact Liam Lawson, representing the junior team Racing Bulls. He drove well, high on confidence, and finished sixth. Gabriel Bortoleto, the 20-year-old rookie, secured the first points of his F1 career, finishing eighth in the Sauber after a mature drive.
McLaren knew their drivers would undoubtedly end up on track together again at close quarters this weekend, and Piastri was given an early “your call on the racing situation” message as he closed in on his team-mate.
He managed to get alongside Norris but never quite had enough pace to counter the dirty air of his rival. Leclerc could not capitalise on the squabble ahead of him, told from the first stint of the race to “li-co all corners every lap”, meaning he would have to lift and coast to prevent his brakes from overheating.
The temperatures, which reached 50C on track and more than 31C in the air, suited McLaren. At a circuit tucked into the Styrian mountains, they were in a race of their own for much of the 70 laps, leaving Horner impressed. “What’s truly impressive, and I can’t see any other team being able to do it, is when you look at how close Oscar is able to run behind Lando with a car fat on fuel at the beginning of the race, and he’s basically making love to his exhaust pipe for lap after lap after lap, and the tires are not dying,” he said.
Red Bull’s afternoon worsened as Tsunoda, having already endured another poor qualifying session, received a ten-second penalty for an ill-judged move down the inside of Franco Colapinto, causing the Alpine driver to spin into the gravel.
After the first round of pitstops, Piastri was more than five seconds behind Norris but had fresher tyres. In hindsight he may have been better off pitting immediately after Norris. With both battling traffic, he could not, notably, close the gap to his team-mate.
Piastri entered the pits a lap later at the end of the second stint, and was caught behind a battle between Tsunoda and Colapinto, with the Alpine needlessly pushing Piastri on to the grass. “Alpine still managed to f*** me over all these years later, huh?” the McLaren driver complained, having once been involved in a legal struggle that eventually meant he could leave Alpine and drive for McLaren. Colapinto received a five-second penalty.
Norris was sufficiently concerned by his fellow McLaren driver. “I need some pace, please help,” he said to his race engineer as Piastri closed in. Traffic eventually helped Norris retain the lead, and he admirably kept calm when it mattered.
Bernie Ecclestone presented Norris with the FIA President’s Medal, for victory. It was the 94-year-old’s first time on the podium. Norris will hope for plenty more before the season is out.