Austria GP Part 1

[Nitrodaze]

I think Bottas did a very good job this weekend. It is not fair to diminish it in any way. Hamilton paid the price of not nailing a fast lap to take pole in the first place. The weird stewards penalty sort of took the shine of a first corner fight off the start. Redbull were trying to manufacture a win with Verstapenn but karma had something to say about that.

Mercedes were very disappointing, especially seeing how much faster Hamilton was on the yellow tyres compared to Bottas that seemed to be struggling. In a short season such as this, it is much more a case of every driver for himself. Team orders only serve to styme the chances of the disadvantaged driver. So Mercedes did Hamilton no favors at this race.

I thought they would let him pass Bottas so that he can recover from the 5 sec penalty with some fast laps. They appear dozey today, the Mercedes pitwall. But they might be genuinely worried about getting both cars to the end of the race with their gearbox worries.

The racing point did not show their real pace at this race due to the Mercedes gearbox worries. I expect the story would be very different on another track.

Did anyone noticed the plume of fumes that was coming out of the Mercedes exhaust. It kind of reminded me of the smokey Ferrari of 2018.

It was a great day for Mclaren. In particular Lando Norris who has obviously matured really well.

It has been some time since we have seen six cars retire from a race with mechanical failures in a dry race. Admittedly Kimi's retirement was for a tyre that came of the rims. Nonetheless, it is surprisingly high for the Hybrid Era.

Also, the Ferrari turned out to be much slower than expected. But Leclerc once again shows why he is deserving of the support that Ferrari has given him.

Albon was brilliant today until that overtake that went wrong. You cannot overtake a six time world champion in the manner that he chose to do it. But we see him exhibit a fearless desire to overtake even a six times world champion. He would get it right next time l think. You can imagine the pressure he was under after Verstapenn's DNF.

I still think the stewarding at this race was sub-standard and largely inconsistent.

All in all, it was a very welcomed return to racing and a very entertaining race too.