Austria GP Qualifying and Race Report

Note: for this race I am "on holiday", the reality being that I can only watch highlights on C4 late at night and come to write this very late in the day on Monday...

Qualifying

The second Qualifying session had a couple of notes of interest.  Four times world champion Vettel impeded twice world champion Alonso, a move that cost him 3 grid places.  Former Aussie hot shot Ricciardo could only get his (flash lightning) McLaren into 13th, whilst Russell in his (improving?) Williams made 10th and through to the final session, beating both Ferraris.

The crowd was a sea of orange (Rangers fans or as Norris repeatedly joked, there in papaya for McLaren?) and gave a huge cheer when Hamilton could only go 4th in the final session.  Norris missed pole by 0.04 seconds.  Russell wasn't 10th as expected and put in a quicker lap than former Williams protégé/pay driver Stroll.  After, Russell felt it was a particularly quick lap as it was done on medium tires, which he will have to start on.  He was pleased as the soft tires looked "disastrous for the race".  So Williams definitely to score points in this race...

Race

It still felt like the media were running a skeleton crew (for each 5 members of crowd, 1 member of the media had to go?).  DC was left interviewing his godson, Monty Horner, who was very clear that his favourite driver is Max....  Turns out Perez is doomed after all.

With Ocon out on the first lap, hopes were that Russell would definitely be in the points after the first lap.  No, down four places at the start.  Perez was also down six places by lap 4, which also saw Bottas overtake Hamilton.  Lewis was particularly quiet this race, not complaining or questioning, just head down and race slowly.

Then the stewards remembered they had the power to hand out penalties.  Norris for pushing Tsunoda off the track, two for Tsunoda pushing drivers off the track, two for Perez pushing LeClerc off the track and many more for track limits, speeding in the pits and crossing a special white line.

Half way through the race I looked to see where Ricciardo was placed and couldn't find him....I was looking to low, he was in P5!  After the pit stops had played out, Russell was in 16th, definitely going to score some points.  Hamilton and Bottas were "inverted", a chance for Bottas to show Russell how to score points?  The question is why did Mercedes leave poor tires on Hamilton for so long when they clearly weren't working?  They let Norris past them.  Hamilton even commented on the radio that Lando is "such a great driver", maybe he will be the Brit in the second seat?

Towards the end, Alonso and Russell were battling for 10th.  In the end the car with the bigger budget (and world champion) won.  Behind them a fuming Kimi Raikkonen was upset that no one in the team told him to watch the track limits at turn 10.  Not surprising they didn't mention it until they really needed to.  Hamilton was given the number 2 job of backing a 10-second-penalty-carrying Perez up.  While Norris held 3rd, Sainz overtook Ricciardo, having also been given the team orders pass to overtake LeClerc.  On the last lap Vettel was taken out by his pal Raikkonen.  Norris felt his penalty cost him second place, which is probably true and bodes well for the future of this season.

The interviews were done by Christian Klein, which was a blast from the past.

How do I rate the Channel 4 experience?  Jones' questions are short and to the point.  DC is greyer than I remembered and they seem to get changed during the race?  There are so many ad breaks though, so many.