The Austrian Grand Prix produced a surprising climax, with George Russell emerging victorious after a prolonged duel between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris ended with both of them pitting with a damaged tyre. While Red Bull’s Dutch driver managed to get going again and finish fifth, McLaren’s Englishman had to retire. Russell thus ends a winless streak for both himself and Mercedes which lasted for 34 Grands Prix and 595 days, dating back to Brazil in 2022. This is Russell’s second Formula 1 win, while for Mercedes it’s number 126. Joining him on the podium were Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari).

THE DAY ON TRACK:
As expected, the most effective strategy was a two-stop: those who did three or more – Verstappen, Leclerc, Alonso and Sargeant – did so for unforeseen circumstances, not by choice. All the drivers lined up on the grid on Medium tyres while, starting from pit lane, Zhou went with the Hard. The C4 and the C3 were the undoubted protagonists of this race, with the C5 only putting in an appearance at the end, used by Verstappen for the last seven laps after his enforced stop and by Alonso, who was trying for the race fastest lap, which he did indeed set. Daniel Ricciardo drove the longest stint of the race, completing a 34 lap third and final stint on the Hard tyre. The prize on Mediums goes to Pierre Gasly who did 29 laps and in this case too, the French Alpine driver did it in his final stint.

MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
“When you least expect it, the sparks fly! The first two thirds of the race were generally linear, it only took a small problem at Verstappen’s second pit stop to bring together on track the two outstanding drivers of this weekend, thus triggering a thrilling on-the-limit duel. It produced a very exciting finale which, in the end, worked out to the benefit of George Russell, who was thus able to secure his second ever Grand Prix win: congratulations to him and to Mercedes! Overall, there was actually a lot of overtaking in this race, some of it very spectacular.

From our side there were no surprises. The tyres behaved exactly as expected, both when compared to the simulations carried out before arriving in Austria and based on the analysis of the data gathered on Friday and yesterday. The strategy predictions were also pretty much respected. Medium and Hard were the main choices for the race. The Medium probably performed a touch better, especially on the more competitive cars. Although they had two sets of Hards available, the Red Bull pair chose the C4 for the third stint, for this precise reason and also to be in the same situation as the competitors they were fighting with in this phase of the race. On the other hand, the C3, which suffered slightly less from degradation, worked well for those who opted to run a very short first stint on the Medium before then exploiting the greater consistency of the white-banded tyres, thus managing to get into the points, as did the Haas pair of Hulkenberg and Magnussen, as well as Ricciardo (Racing Bulls)."

FORMULA 2
Gabriel Bortoleto produced a masterful performance to take his maiden Formula 2 win in an action packed Feature Race at Spielberg. The Invicta Racing driver relieved Joshua Durksen (AIX Racing) of the lead in the early stages before doing a good job of managing his pace and his tyres to take the win ahead of Franco Colapinto (MP Motorsport) and Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing) second and third respectively. Paul Aron still leads the Drivers’ championship on 115 points, 15 more than Jadjar, while Bortoleto moves up to third on 85.

At the start, 13 drivers opted for the Supersoft and nine for the Soft. The softest compound proved to be the winning one, also thanks to a helping hand from a VSC just on the lap when the pit stop window opened, thus reducing the time lost at the pit stop at the point when the Soft was starting to perform better. Furthermore, those who stopped around these laps were able to make the most of lapping with a clear track ahead.

FORMULA 3
Luke Browning had the Spielberg Feature Race under control to take his second win of the season. All race long, the Hitech Pulse-Eight driver fended off the advances of two of the PREMA Racing drivers, Gabriele Minì and Dino Beganovic, who fought over the podium places all the way to the last lap. The win puts Browning into the lead of the Drivers’ championship on 106 points. Minì moves up to second on 95, while Leonardo Fornaroli drops to third with 86.

In this morning’s race, graining began to make itself felt between laps eight and twelve, causing significant degradation and for some, very heavy wear in the closing stages of the race. Those who did the best job of managing the degradation were able to make up places towards the end.

COMING UP NEXT FOR OUR TYRES
This was the busiest weekend of the year for Pirelli, working as sole tyre supplier not only at the Austrian Grand Prix, but also at the 24 Hours of Spa and Rally Poland. Now the Formula 1 season continues apace with the classic British Grand Prix taking place at Silverstone next weekend. Racing around the Northamptonshire track will also be the Formula 2 and Formula 3 cars. That same weekend, there’s another motor racing classic, with the DTM championship round at the Norisring, along with the ADAC GT4, for which once again this year, Pirelli is the sole supplier. And that’s not all, as Pirelli will also be at the European Rally Championship round in Estonia and at Suzuka for the GTWC Asia.