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4 hours ago
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Key events
Lap 17/71: George Russell, to David Croft “the tyre whisperer”, wonders about a one-stop.
Lap 16/71: The stewards note Hamilton for possibly forcing off Verstappen. Karun Chandhok reckons it was OK.
Lap 15/71: Verstappen going faster than he was, but not as fast as Hamilton on his fresh tyres. Decisions, decisions.
Lap 14/71: Leclerc in now. A three-stopper on the cards because of the toll on the tyres.
Lap 14/71: Ferrari tell Hamilton to put the foot down lest Verstappen comes in.
Lap 13/71: Hamilton pits and rejoins on hard tyres in 11th.
Lap 12/71: “That’s a penalty. Clear penalty,” claims Verstappen, who locked up at a crucial moment.
Lap 11/71: Verstappen takes second off Hamilton for a moment but the Ferrari gets the place back and then fantastic wheel-to-wheel action.
Lap 10/71: Hamilton wobbled but has just enough to hold Verstappen off for now.
Lap 9/71: The good news for George Russell is that David Croft and Karun Chandhok are not talking about him.
Lap 8/71: Hamilton has been off, has a time deleted and has Verstappen right on his tail.
Lap 7/71: Antonelli harasses Leclerc, he has to use his energy to defend, has nothing left at the end of the lap and is overtaken.
Lap 6/71: Perez joins Bottas in exiting. Both Cadillacs out.
Lap 5/71: Kimi Antonelli was investigated for going off and gaining time but has been cleared. He gave back the place the one time he did gain one.
Lap 5/71: Russell has 1.1 sec on Hamilton.
Lap 4/71: Lawson in heat trouble too. Claiming flames but nothing visible.
Lap 3/71: Russell got away very well. But Valtteri Bottas is on fire and in the pits.
Lap 2/71: And Verstappen passes Antonelli and Leclerc.
Lap 2/71: Russell, Hamilton, Leclerc. Antonelli goes third briefly but has to give it back as he went off to gain the place.
Lap 1/71: But Antonelli recovered to stay fourth,
Lap 1/71: Antonelli off! Hamilton past Leclerc!
Lights out!
I was wrong about 40C being the track temperature. That’s the air temperature. Track is 63C …
And we are off on the formation lap.
The hills are now alive to the sound of jet engines, as we get a fly past.
Please stand for the Austrian national anthem.
Zak Brown is collared next. And Ted Kravitz asks about the possibility of Max Verstappen replacing Piastri or Norris. Brown stresses he is very happy with both drivers, that they have contracts, and as far as he knows they are happy. But, he adds: “If someone slipped on a banana peel getting out of the tub, Max is a four-time world champion.”
You cannot escape football. Fabian Hürzeler, Brighton’s Austrian manager, is grabbed by Ted Kravitz for a quick word. Perhaps “velocity”*.
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*Copyright Martin Buchan
After David Croft took a break for the last race, it’s Martin Brundle’s turn for a break. Ted Kravitz and Bernie Collins will have grid duties for Sky Sports.
Here are the constructors’ standings:
1 Mercedes 262pts
2 Ferrari 190
3 McLaren 141
4 Red Bull 89
5 Alpine 60
6 Racing Bulls 38
7 Haas 21
8 Williams 11
9 Audi 2
10 Aston Martin 1
11 Cadillac 0
It’s almost 40C at trackside. They could do with a bit more altitude, I imagine.
Here are the drivers’ standings after Antonelli’s 16th (technically not a DNF as he finished 90% of the race) at the Barcelona-Catalunya GP allowed Hamilton and Russell to eat into their deficits by 25 and 18 points respectively:
1 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 156pts
2 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 115
3 George Russell Mercedes 106
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 75
5 Lando Norris McLaren 73
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren 68
7 Max Verstappen Red Bull 55
8 Pierre Gasly Alpine 41
9 Isack Hadjar Red Bull 34
10 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 26
What did the main players in yesterday’s late drama have to say about it?
“I saw the yellow, I had a big lift into the corner … it was a single yellow and should be OK,” said Russell, who continued Mercedes’s streak of securing pole position for the eighth race in a row.
Antonelli took fourth place on Sunday’s grid after aborting his final lap following Verstappen’s crash. “I don’t know why but I thought it was a double yellow, so I aborted completely … I shouldn’t have done that. That was my mistake,” the 19-year-old Italian, who has won five of the seven races so far, told Sky Sports.
“It’s a shame as realistically we could have been [third],” Verstappen said. “There are still some things we want to understand from the package, some that worked well and some not so well, and work from there.” Reuters
Without the Verstappen crash, we might well have an all-Mercedes front row again; a sheepish Antonelli conceded that Russell’s figures were superior but believed he was on track to take second before aborting the lap. Ferrari, with their latest upgrades, were tipped to do well but maybe a bit better was expected. What happened? Perhaps their improvement vanished literally into thin air: Spielberg is 660m above sea level.
Hamilton addressed the issue:
“I think this weekend we’ve not been confident that we could fight for a win. We knew coming into this weekend it would be tough with the long straights we’ve got here, and the deficit looked bigger than other circuits that we’ve been at. Maybe it’s altitude, I’m not sure.” AP
For comparison, next week’s race at Silverstone is 153m, Barcelona was about 130m, and Monaco might as well be under water.
Preamble
There are plenty of chaotic F1 races but relatively few chaotic qualifying sessions. The finish to Saturday’s Q3 was something else, with George Russell snatching pole from Charles Leclerc but everyone assuming his time would be wiped out – through no fault of his own – because of Max Verstappen’s crash. But the British Mercedes driver had played it perfectly, lifting in response to single yellows for long enough to pass the incident but not too long to extend his lap time past Leclerc’s mark. Eventually double yellow flags, deleting lap times, were shown, but the officials wondered for just enough seconds if single yellows were sufficient to cover off the hazard.
The misdirection came first from his teammate Kimi Antonelli misinterpreting the yellow lights as doubles and aborting his lap, and then from the FIA computer feed showing lap times deleted for both Mercedes drivers – but, as it turned out, those auto-deletions were for the slow-down laps, not the hot ones.
So here we are, with Russell on a desperately needed pole, Leclerc alongside him, Hamilton behind him and Antonelli in fourth. Russell badly needs a win after slipping behind his current and former teammates in the standings, but fortunately he is in the best place from which to achieve that.
Join me for updates. Formation lap at 2pm BST.
