Formula One - Austin GP - Bitter Taste of Winning

The Austin Grand Prix! One of the most suspenseful races last season, will be this year nothing but a show race. Despite the fact that Verstappen already has his World Title, there is still the constructors championship up for grabs. Well, it looks like red Bull will get it in this race as well and the voices will get even louder about a possible budget cap overstep from last season. On a more sad node, this Grand Prix is standing unfortunately under a bad star, as it was announced that the founder of the Red Bull company, Dietrich Mateschitz, passed away. He is the man that enabled so many great sprots moment and sponsored so many different sports types. I think it is safe to say, that he changed the sports world and gave the spectators a lot of thrilling moments.

But now back to the race! Not only is the constructor’s title is up for grabs, but also many points for the end placement of drivers and teams. There is still a very tight battle between McLaren and Alpine going on. Furthermore, Mick Schumacher is hoping to secure himself a seat for next season and is trying to promote himself for Haas as well as for Williams. Sebastian Vettel is on his last few races of his career and trying to make the best out of his Aston Martin. And let’s not forget the fight for second place between Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez. All in all, a good race to watch still!

Qualifying: Ferrari In Great Shape

In general, the qualifying did not have many surprises for us yet again. In Q1 Latifi, Schumacher, Danny, Magnussen and Ocon went out. Very unfortunate for Ocon as he was improving his results over the past weeks. Still it keeps us with one McLaren and one Alpine in the roster for the Q2 and Q3. In there, we would see a strong Alex albon, who amanged to secure himself a good P11 with all opportunities for points. Other than that we lost Vettel, Gasly Zhou and Tsunoda in this Q2. I am a little disappointed in Pierre Gasly this year but I think his Alpha Tauri would not give him as much as he demands and will therefore switch teams in the next season.

Last but not least we have Q3. Here we saw a very tight battle between Alonso and Norris, which Norris could decide for himself. He managed to secure himself P8. At the front we would see both Ferraris, which again looked very strong! It is not the first time that they outqualified Red Bull in this season, but it is always the Race Day which counts. Not only that but Leclerc has gotten a new engine which would give him a grid place penalty anyways. This means that behind Sainz there is the following order: Verstappen, Hamilton and Russell. It will definitely be important how everybody will start and what they will be able to do with their situation.

The Race: Verstappen Flex & Unlucky Moments

The race started like the last season’s one! The driver in P2 was getting the better start, which in this case was Max Verstappen. He overtook Sainz right from the start and was able to lead the grand Prix fairly quickly. To make the afternoon for Carlos even worse, George Russell t-boned the Ferrari in the first corner. This meant that Carlos fell down to last place and retired one lap later. Why? The crash had influenced something in his cooling cycle and from last place the risk would have been not manageable to continue racing. Very unlucky indeed, because Russell did only get a 5 second penalty for this maneuver. What’s on the impressive side is that after the first corner both Aston Martins were in P5 and P3! After a few more laps the fight for podiums looked like it will be decided amongst Mercedes and Red Bull though.

With only one Ferrari left in the race Leclerc had to do his absolute best to get himself into position for points again. After 13 laps he was able to get into P6 by overtaking Sebastian Vettel. Around this time, the majority of the pack decided t go for a first pit stop. The only ones who stayed out were Leclerc as well as Vettel which would pay off for them. In lap 18 Bottas was unable to control his car anymore and went out. This resulted in a Safety Car period which lasted until lap 22. The restart was very uneventful but a few corners later Alonso crashed into Stroll. At first, the crash looked very bad that a Red Flag was in discussion but then a Safety Car Deployment was enough yet again.

The restart happened in lap 26 and was basically a copy of the previous one. The race went on until lap 30 when Leclerc made a great move on Perez who was caught sleeping pretty much. After that nothing major happened until lap 36. This is when Verstappen went into the pits and had a horrific pit stop! He dropped down behind Hamilton and was even overtaken by Leclerc in the pits. All of this because of a defect wheel gun. What’s more impressive is what happened afterwards. In a few laps he was able to overtake Charles with some great moves down the inside. While all of this was happening, Sebastian Vettel was able to get his 3500th leading lap in, which is pretty impressive as well.

Unfortunately for him, he went into the pits and suffered a similar problem as Verstappen. His pit stop was so horrible that he fell down into P13! This left us with some very interesting and intense laps to go. Both Verstappen and Vettel had some catching up to do. While Verstappen reached his goal of P1 in lap 50, it was a tight race until the end for Vettel. He managed to overtake Magnussen in the last few corners of lap 56 and was able to get into P8!

Conclusion

It was a very short lived race in my opinion. We got to see some great overtakes, unlucky moments and amazing comebacks. Yes Red Bull was able to win the constructor’s title and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of all Forumla fans. With the background of the current investigations going on, it would be interesting if they went over the budget cap this year as well. Not only that, but how big of an influence was the last season for the development of this year’s car? I am assuming it has a very big influence and is therefore more than unfair if the overspending is a big portion! I guess the only thing to do now is to wait and enjoy the last few races of the season.

Published by ga38jem on
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On 23rd October 2022