Austria: Prospects for the Race

Will we witness Mercedes' first defeat of the season? Will Charles Leclerc claim the first victory of his career? Will Antonio Giovinazzi score his first points of the season? There are many questions ahead of this Austrian Grand Prix.

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Will Ferrari’s strategy pay off?

We all remember Charles Leclerc’s performance in the Bahrain desert. He had secured his first pole position in F1. Although his start to the race was mixed, he quickly raised his game to regain the lead. Unfortunately, he was let down by his car and only owed his third-place finish on the podium to the safety car brought out by the double retirement of the Renaults at the end of the race.

In Austria, Charles Leclerc was once again very comfortable throughout the weekend. “On my favorite track,” said the Monegasque, he was at the top of all the sessions except the first one. But Ferrari made an aggressive choice in Q2 by switching to softs for both drivers when they clearly had the pace to move on with mediums. Asked about this, the Maranello driver expressed confidence in this choice: “Like everyone, we did our analysis after yesterday and made our choice. The softs were pretty good. I’m happy with this choice.”

With these softest tires, he should be able to get off the grid better than the Mercedes and Max Verstappen, who are on mediums. But will he be able to hold them off further into the race when the high temperatures take a toll on his tires?

Finding one’s way through all the grid penalties

Rarely has a starting grid been so reshuffled. Indeed, no less than five drivers have received at least one penalty. The confusion is even greater because some drivers are less penalized thanks to the penalties imposed on others. The best example is Lewis Hamilton, who finished second in qualifying and was penalized three places, but will still start 4th thanks to Kevin Magnussen’s penalty for a gearbox change.

Lewis Hamilton was not the only one penalized for his behavior as George Russell received the same sanction for being particularly slow while Daniil Kvyat was arriving for his last attempt in Q1. Normally, this would have relegated the Briton to the last position, behind his teammate, but Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz were already assured of starting from the back of the grid for having changed several elements on their engines.

As for Nico Hülkenberg, he received a five-place penalty for his own mechanical change but in the same logic as for Lewis Hamilton, he only lost three places, moving from 12th to 15th on the grid.

Alfa Romeo solid in the top 10

After a difficult start to the season, Antonio Giovinazzi is in tune with his teammate Kimi Räikkönen. The performance between the two Alfa Romeo drivers was very solid, with only 13 thousandths separating them in their best Q3 lap.

The young Italian will be eager to prove himself in the race to finally score his first points in F1, as we have already passed the first third of the season. This would leave only the Williams drivers without any points so far.

The pneumatic strategy

Pirelli remains cautious about its optimal strategy choices. Indeed, the Italian manufacturer specifies that the fastest strategy is to start on mediums for a stint of 16 to 20 laps before finishing the race on hards. However, the strategy of starting with softs for 12-14 laps is very close in overall pace throughout the race.

From our special correspondent in Spielberg

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