Max Verstappen & Lando Norris Collide, George Russell Wins in Austria (2024)

Hard racing and contact between the two fastest drivers turns the Austrian Grand Prix (June 30) on its head, with George Russell reaping the benefits, winning June 30’s Austrian Grand Prix.

Contact between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, the two main contenders, on lap 64 opened the door for Russell, who cruised to his second victory.

He held off Oscar Piastri, who finished second, while Carlos Sainz stood third on the podium, earning his fifth podium of the season.

Verstappen looked to be in control at the Red Bull Ring, at one point having an eight-second lead over the McLaren of Norris. However, a slow 6.5-second stop brought Norris closer to the Dutchman.

Norris entered DRS range and began to attack Verstappen for the lead of the race in the final 20 laps of the race.

Norris pushed so hard that it looked like he made a fourth track limits infringement.

However, as the stewards were investigating Norris, he continued to apply pressure on the Red Bull of Verstappen.

The entire grand prix changed on lap 64. Norris once again dived to the outside into turn 3, and Verstappen veered left, making contact with Norris, causing a puncture in both of their cars.

While Norris’ damage became terminal on his way back to the pits, Verstappen recovered to finish fifth. A 10-second penalty for avoidable contact failed to affect Verstappen’s ultimate finish.

“I thought it was a good race until then,” Norris said. “Clearly a little bit on the back foot in terms of overall pace compared to Max. The first and second stint, he would always just edge away that little bit and little bit, but they just seemed to make a lot more mistakes than what we did. They messed up their pit stop, which is rare from them, but clearly, a bit of pressure from their side, and they started to slip up a little bit. I felt like drove a good race.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Verstappen said. “It’s stuff that you don’t want to see happening. It’s as simple as that. Of course, I will look back at it… It’s better to look back at it in terms of what went wrong because it was a bit of an awkward angle that we touched. Something that is very weird. Also, for both of us to get a puncture, that is really bad.

“We’ll talk about it. At the moment, I think it’s not the right point. It’s better to let things cool off ideally, but besides that, I’m more annoyed also, which is how the performance of the race was and the mistakes that we made that we normally don’t make.

Benefiting from the Verstappen/Norris wreck was Russell. He raced fourth for most of the day, and was poised for third, racing on the hard tire in the closing stages. With the top two in points out of the race and after a subsequent virtual safety car, Russell held on two seconds ahead of Piastri.

“To be honest, I was really happy with the race,” Russell said. “Being at P3 was going to be a great result for us. I knew Lando was pretty fired up after yesterday with the battles up front, and you want to be there to pick up the pieces, and that’s where we were. At the start of this year, we were never there. The team has done a amazing job improving the car. Really proud to be on the top step.”

Piastri’s weekend became more difficult as his third fastest lap in yesterday’s qualifying was deleted after the stewards deemed that he violated track limits on his flying lap. He was relegated back to seventh on the start, survived the start with contact with Charles Leclerc, and worked his way back up to earn the second step of the podium.

“[I’m] happy mostly, a little bit bittersweet though,” Piastri said. “When you’re so close to the win – we were chasing him down in the last stint. [I] just needed some more laps really, and obviously, starting from seventh instead of third, that hurts at the moment. Bittersweet, but we’ll definitely take the points, take the trophy. It’s only my fourth podium in F1. So, they don’t come around everyday.”

Lewis Hamilton ran fifth, but on the first cycle of pit stops, Hamilton experienced understeer in the car coming into the pits, sending the car barely over the white pit entry line. He received a five-second time penalty for the infringement. With the misfortune of Verstappen and Norris, Hamilton finished best of the rest in fourth.

Sainz’s Ferrari teammate Leclerc was the biggest loser on the start, as the Monegasque, who started in sixth, was pinched between Piastri and Perez, damaging the Ferrari’s front wing.

Both Haas tires were the first pair of drivers to pit from the edge of the points as both pitted on laps 10 and 11, electing to take an alternative strategy to help them in the long run of the race, and it paid off nicely for both drivers.

Nico Hulkenberg dueled at the end with Perez, who was back battling for sixth due to the contact with Leclerc, resulting in side pod damage and a five-second penalty for speeding on pit lane. In a last-lap shootout, Perez got by Hulkenberg, but the German switched back by him to gain Haas’ best finish of the season. His teammate Kevin Magnussen finished eighth.

Daniel Ricciardo finished ninth, and Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10, scoring points for Alpine.

Austrian Grand Prix Results

The British Grand Prix is next on the F1 calendar on July 5, with coverage in the United States provided by ESPN2 and ESPN+.