Spielberg Spiel
A midseason review of the most exciting Formula One season in years
For 50 laps, the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg was pretty tame.
On Lap 51, that false sense of security was shattered.
An unexpectedly long pit stop by race leader Max Verstappen brought Lando Norris back into the race, leading to a tense battle for the lead that culminated in the two spectacularly crashing into each other and opening the door for George Russell to squeak through for a shock win. In a way it’s quite fitting that such a race occurred in a place called Spielberg. The plot twists were something I’m sure Steven Spielberg himself would approve of.
Since this post is also my first in-depth post about the current Formula One season and we’re starting pretty much midway through it, this post will cover not only the main takeaways from Austria but also larger narratives surrounding each team so far and things to keep in mind as the season progresses. As such, it’s about as long as a Scorsese movie. So please bear with me, I don’t anticipate every post being like this. While I do recommend you read the entire thing, you can also look at the bolded subheaders if you’re looking to just read up on the teams you’re interested in.
One last note: I do want these posts to be both entertaining and informative. So while I could go on about how great my favorite driver is or how it’s fitting they’re as chaotically suave as the galaxy’s most famous card shark turned war hero, I’m instead going to do my best to remain objective. And if you already know who my favorite driver on the grid is, it’s probably because I’ve honked at you about them excessively. I’m so sorry about that. Hopefully you’ll still want to read this post.
With that, “Here goes nothing!”
Red Bull still have the best driver. But they no longer have the best car.
This might be a hot take given a Red Bull has still won three out of the last five races, but it’s one that I stand by after this week. Spielberg—with its emphasis on straight line speed—was supposed to play right into Red Bull’s hands. Even though Verstappen controlled the race well up until the freak pit stop on Lap 51 (long by Red Bull’s standards but something I’m sure the Sauber team would gladly take), his complaints about the car both in Austria and in weeks before suggest his skill as a driver is largely what’s keeping Red Bull up front at this rate.
The clearest evidence of this might lie in the team’s recent decision to extend Sergio Perez through 2026, a move that on the surface looks a bit rash given his results the past few races have generally provoked feelings of secondhand embarrassment. This week Verstappen had a crash that forced him to limp back to the pits for an extra pit stop (something that at Austria costs you ~20 seconds) before the stewards tacked on a 10 second penalty for causing said crash. And he still finished 17 seconds and two places ahead of Perez. Sure, Perez can blame this result on bad luck and say that the damaged sidepod he sustained early on left him hampered and unable to make inroads. I don’t disagree with that statement objectively. But on a subjective note I disagree with his assessment that this was bad luck: if anything he should feel fortunate he has a legitimate excuse this week for underperforming. After finishing 2nd in three of the first four races he’s now slipped to 5th in the championship and is only seven points ahead of George Russell in 7th. And despite the problems with the car Austria was still his best finish since Miami five races ago. Admittedly, having Verstappen as your teammate does you zero favors. Few drivers can hold their own against him, and by circumstance Perez is the victim of an unfortunate comparison here. It shouldn’t be a knock against Perez’s skill that he isn’t near the level of someone who, at age 26, is arguably already an all-time top five driver.
But what if Perez is in fact not underperforming? Red Bull are surely aware of the caveat in comparing him to Verstappen. And they’ve never been afraid to ditch drivers at the first sign of underperformance. Formula One is a small world, but even so it’s phenomenal that 15% of the current grid can call Red Bull their ex! Not breaking up with Perez, then, suggests they feel like he’s doing an adequate job with the car. And if that’s the case the results are clear: Red Bull have a great car. But it’s no longer the best car.
McLaren should check the fact sheet before going down rabbit holes. If they did they’d realize they don’t need to go down them in the first place.
McLaren were unfortunate to come away from Sunday with the results they did. And that’s with one of their cars finishing 2nd.
Oscar Piastri’s immediate response to finishing runner-up was to point the finger at the fact he could’ve won the race if the FIA hadn’t erased his fastest lap in qualifying for exceeding track limits and forced him to start the race 7th instead of 3rd. He might have a point—had he started 3rd he likely would’ve been the main beneficiary of Verstappen and Norris ruining each other’s races. That the penalty came on a corner where there was already a gravel trap in place to serve as a penalty made the decision to penalize him even weirder. But the penalty was handed out and 3rd place on the starting grid went to George Russell—who proved Piastri’s point by winning. But more on that later.
Lando Norris’s immediate response to going from 2nd to retiring from the race and finishing dead last in the blink of an eye was to point the finger at Max Verstappen’s racecraft. He might have a point—though his own racecraft did him no favors either. But more on that later.
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella’s immediate response to everything that happened during the race was to point the finger at the stewards for not enforcing the rules. He might have a point—when it mattered the stewards oscillated between not enforcing rules and taking forever to do so. But more on that later.
These reactions in the immediate aftermath of a race are normal. In the specific case of this weekend I’d say they’re also largely warranted. But while their drivers seem to have moved on (Norris said this week he and Verstappen talked and cleared the air), the same seemingly can’t be said of the greater McLaren organization. The team’s decision to continue talking about the events of last week well into this week, going as far as posting Sky Sports’ breakdown of the Norris-Verstappen crash on their social media, screams the type of pettiness you thought you left behind in high school. I would understand if this was the season finale and the championship was on the line, but double checking the fact sheet confirms Austria is still race 11 out of 24. Complaining extensively about what happened last weekend reeks of a desperate attempt to win the court of public opinion. And checking the fact sheet again reveals that—shocker—winning in the court of public opinion does not come with the Constructors’ Championship trophy.
If McLaren really want to win over the public (because it seems like they care about that and also because their current PR strategy is going over about as well as Biden’s debate performance), the answer is simple: stick to the racing instead of the high school drama revival. They are currently best placed to end Red Bull’s dominance because they currently have the best car overall. They are the only ones right now who have consistently brought the pace needed to compete for podiums and wins, regardless of the circuit or conditions. And this time the fact sheet does back them up—McLaren are the only team to have had at least one car finish on the podium in each of the last seven races.
Mercedes might’ve gotten lucky. But that’s because their improvements are paying off.
“GEORGE YOU CAN WIN THIS—YOU CAN WIN THIS GEORGE!!!”
That was Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff upon seeing the Norris-Verstappen crash go down. Suddenly, what had originally appeared to be a respectable day in the office for Mercedes turned into a whole lot more. Russell did end up winning, and everyone not at Mercedes proceeded to give him the treatment you’d expect them to give a winner—they quickly moved on and circled back to Norris and Verstappen.
It’s not that the lack of focus on Russell winning was entirely unwarranted. You just can’t really say anything about someone’s driving when they’re running 15 seconds behind the top two and suddenly have the race win handed to them because the ill-advised game of chicken between the top two ended exactly as any ill-advised game of chicken does. However, ignore Russell and Mercedes’s win at your own peril. Yes, they got *very* lucky. But they took advantage of their lucky break because they now have a truly competitive car. Russell’s win, plus Lewis Hamilton finishing 4th, cements a third straight week where both Mercedes have finished in the top 4. Their race pace might still be a bit off that of Red Bull (especially a Red Bull at the hands of Verstappen) and McLaren (especially a McLaren at the hands of Norris), but this win was a deserved result for a team that’s slowly worked their way towards the front of the grid this season and are finally seeing the fruits of their labor. All that’s left for them to do is keep going at it. Or, to quote Russell’s reply to Toto Wolff excitedly telling him victory was within his grasp:
“JUST LET ME F***ING DRIVE!!!”
Ferrari take two steps forward—and end up three steps back.
At the season’s start Ferrari appeared to be the one best suited to taking on Red Bull. In fact, a Ferrari finished on the podium in seven of the first eight races. But after a double podium in Monaco that saw Charles Leclerc take a deserved home win the team’s results have dropped off in a way that should scream red alert.
They were unlucky to end with a double retirement in Canada, though the optimistic take would be the double retirement took away from the fact both cars had also failed to make the final round of qualifying the day before. A slew of upgrades that arrived in Spain a few weeks later yielded a mediocre P5-P6 finish that saw them finish behind not only Red Bull and McLaren, but also Mercedes (who had only finished ahead of Ferrari for the first time this season in Canada thanks to the aforementioned double retirement). Carlos Sainz’s 3rd place finish in Austria (after more upgrades), then, is Ferrari’s highlight of the past month or so. Yet it’s a podium that came only as a result of Norris and Verstappen’s antics, not to mention one where they were essentially left to pick up the remaining crumbs after Mercedes and McLaren had already had their fill.
I’m not a race engineer, so it would perhaps be unfair if I called these upgrades Ferrari have brought “downgrades.” This is the most successful and most storied constructor in Formula One history we’re talking about. They wouldn’t have installed something if it made the car slower, right? Assuming the upgrades are what their name suggest they are, however, still paints an ominous picture: they are nowhere near as good as those of their rivals. And so, for yet another year running, Ferrari find themselves falling further behind even as they move forward. They’ll hope to discover at least some answers this coming weekend at Silverstone, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a whole lot of praying going on amongst the Ferrari ranks right now. And if that’s the case I genuinely hope those prayers are answered. Because it’s not just God—everyone knows the answers likely won’t be coming from the engineering department anytime soon.
Ayao Komatsu is slowly pushing the boulder up at Haas.
It’s no secret that being a customer team in today’s Formula One environment is inherently Sisyphean. Gone are the days of the 80’s and 90’s when a team like Williams could consistently compete with Ferrari and McLaren. The widening financial gap means if you’re a customer team you end up being squeezed on two fronts. You have comparatively less resources to develop your car, so chances are it won’t be as good as a factory team’s. Even if you do that, chances are you then don’t have enough money left to poach a big name driver who will maximize the car’s potential, leaving you with the option of either settling for an established if middling driver and/or gambling on a young upstart. And even if you luck out and find a driver combination that works, chances are they’ll be quickly noticed by a factory team, who’ll proceed to lure them away from you with a trail of cash that you can’t match. At some point, the boulder always rolls back down.
At Haas, however, you could argue the problem has been getting the boulder off the ground in the first place. They are the only team on the current grid without a podium finish in their entire history (important note: Formula One teams rename themselves so often you’d think they’re on the run or in witness protection. So while some teams such as RB and Sauber have also technically yet to score a podium, they did score podiums and wins when they were operating under a different name). Haas have only ended one season higher than 8th in the Constructors’ Championship (a miraculous 5th place in 2018). They notoriously ended the 2021 season on zero points, an achievement which prompted then Team Principal Guenther Steiner to proclaim that “for two points I would have f***ed the whole paddock.”
Steiner, who had been Haas’s Team Principal since the team entered Formula One in 2016, was replaced by Ayao Komatsu this season. The uptick of results, culminating in a P6-P8 finish at Spielberg this past weekend, suggest the switch is paying off. In 2023, Haas scored 12 points all season. They’re up to 19 and counting already this year. All without sleeping with the entire paddock nine-and-a-half times over.
The key, as Komatsu revealed earlier in the year when he appeared on the Beyond The Grid podcast, was improving communication. That may sound like vacuous corporate lingo, but in Haas’s case this was a literal problem of their own making. Why a team has its official headquarters in the US, their design office in Italy, and their operations center in the UK is beyond me. If anything, it’s a miracle Haas has managed to get anything done at all in the midst of their Bermuda Triangle of dysfunction.
The boulder will eventually roll back down. The constraints a team like Haas faces in today’s Formula One landscape are simply too large to overcome. There will already be upheaval for the 2025 season: Nico Hulkenberg’s departure to Sauber next year in anticipation of their 2026 rebrand as Audi (I told you so—teams love renaming themselves) means the team will be swapping experience for youth as they bring in Ollie Bearman. Whether Kevin Magnussen stays on to drive next season (he’s been with them since 2017) also remains to be seen. But all of that shouldn’t take away from the here and now: the boulder at Haas appears to have lift off. And it shows no sign of rolling back down the rest of this season.
The end of the French civil war at Alpine is in sight, so sit back and enjoy the fireworks while you still can.
Esteban Ocon’s departure at the end of the season, combined with Pierre Gasly’s multi-year renewal, signals victory for House Maison Gasly in the civil war at Alpine. The writing was on the wall following Ocon’s decision to try and pass his teammate on Lap 1 at Monaco—an ill-advised attack that worked out spectacularly for Gasly as Ocon botched the move and was forced to retire from the race. Team Principal Bruno Famin’s subsequent statement promising “appropriate consequences,” coupled with Gasly’s subtle but much more effective attack by revealing Ocon had disobeyed team orders with the attempted overtake, suggested Ocon’s place on the team was becoming untenable. As Gasly put it after he passed his soon-to-be ex-teammate on Lap 41 this past weekend: “Ciao!”
After starting the season with a car that was so slow it looked faster stationary, Alpine’s upgrades have brought the car towards the middle of the pack. Gasly’s P10 was the team’s fourth straight points finish, so the team should continue to to add on to their points total moving forward. The improved car also means we can expect to see more battles from their drivers the rest of the season. Both have something to prove, with Ocon needing results to line himself up for one of the remaining unclaimed spots on the grid and Gasly needing results to justify the team’s decision to move forward with him. July 4th might have passed, but expect to see more (petty) fireworks in red, white, and blue at Alpine the rest of the season.
Aston Martin need to improve their car if they refuse to improve (half) their driver lineup.
Aston Martin’s slow slide to an eventual 5th place finish last year makes the fact a similar story is happening again unsurprising. But similar does not mean equal. If they weren’t bothered last year, they should be alarmed this year.
For one, their car started at a much lower point this year. While Fernando Alonso was a regular presence on the podium at the start of 2023, the best he’s managed so far this year is P5 in Saudi Arabia. As the rest of the field caught up or pulled further away, Aston Martin slumped to a P13-P18 finish in Austria. Their highlight of the weekend was Alonso using his car as a battering ram against Zhou Guanyu’s Sauber. And if you’re struggling to get past a Sauber in 2024, you have a massive problem.
But any improvements they make to the car will be hampered by their decision to stick with Lance Stroll for the foreseeable future. Stroll’s status as a nepo baby—his father is Chairman of the Aston Martin team—has been much maligned in the Formula One community, which is saying something in a sport already rife with nepotism, wealth, and connections. You might think it’s unfair to pick on Stroll, but the fact is his results haven’t justified the decision to keep him on the team. Aston Martin had 280 points last year. Alonso scored 206 of those. Out of the 58 the team has scored in 2024 through Austria, Alonso was responsible for 41.
There’s no shame in Stroll not being able to match Alonso. The latter is a two-time world champion and legend of the sport. Even though he’s 42 and past his prime, he’s still very capable of going toe-to-toe with the younger drivers despite being almost twice as old as some of them. But keeping Stroll when there are other drivers who could match Alonso’s pace better limits any upside Aston Martin can hope to get out of any car they put forward. That they’re seemingly content with choosing the chairman’s son over chasing that potential upside is a pretty big shame.
RB’s driver headache remains untreated.
A P14 finish capped a week to forget for Yuki Tsunoda in Austria. In addition to scoring no points, his use of an ableist slur over the team radio earlier in the week saw him fined €40,000 (he has apologized for his language). I’m sure this isn’t the kind of news RB want their number one driver to be making, but right now there’s no reason to believe it’s anything but a one-off blunder.
The real headache for RB remains the same one that has plagued them since the start of the season: who will join Tsunoda next season? While Aston Martin chose blissful ignorance when it came to the issue with their lineup, RB’s decision to tackle the problem has led to a migraine inducing quandary. Daniel Ricciardo’s P9 finish in Austria provided a much needed boost to his hopes of staying on. But he’s still being outscored by Tsunoda (who has scored 19 of the team’s 30 points so far and has six points finishes to Ricciardo’s three) despite being the significantly more experienced driver. That has prompted calls in some corners to replace Ricciardo with reserve driver Liam Lawson. As of right now I wouldn’t be surprised if that pans out. RB are clearly planning with Tsunoda as their number one. Seeing as next year will be his fifth in Formula One, the need for a more experienced teammate becomes less important. But Ricciardo still has moves to play. Unlike Lawson, he’s the one sitting in the Formula One car and driving it. If he capitalizes on the opportunities ahead he could still cement his place on the team. If that continues, the more likely it is RB will continue to punt their decision down the line. And the more they wait, the more their headache will grow.
Tolerance backfires at Williams.
There was a smattering of commotion when Logan Sargeant seemingly channeled his inner Tom Cruise to pull off Mission Impossible and qualify ahead of Alex Albon for Saturday’s sprint. If you read my previous post on the sprint format, you’ll know why I felt there shouldn’t have been any commotion at all. Sure enough, normal service resumed when it mattered most: Albon qualified 16th and finished 15th in the normal race, while Sargeant qualified 19th and only finished 19th due to being yet another beneficiary of the Norris-Verstappen fracas.
Make no mistake, Austria was not a good weekend for Williams. Most weekends in 2024 haven’t been. Their general struggles this season have only highlighted their failed gamble to bring Sargeant back. After a rough first year that saw him score one point the entire season (Albon scored 27), the logic behind bringing Sargeant back was that after a season adapting to the Formula One world he would be ready to fulfill his potential in the new year. Yet Albon has scored both of the team’s two points so far this season. Sargeant is still only finishing ahead of Albon in a full race when Albon has been forced to retire. At best, this all suggests Sargeant still needs more time. Except Williams have no more time to spare. The controversial decision in Australia where the team responded to Albon wrecking his car during practice by forcing Sargeant to sit out the race and have Albon drive Sargeant’s car may have felt unfair, but it was the inevitable result of Sargeant’s failure to return significant results. If the team had a better car this season perhaps there would still be hope for Sargeant. That they don’t means he’s languishing at the bottom of the grid like last year and now looks closer to being shown the exit door.
Yes, Sauber still exist.
No, they still haven’t scored any points this season.
Miscellaneous Musings:
Much has been made about both Norris and Verstappen’s racecraft in the aftermath of their crash. While I do believe Verstappen was responsible for the crash on Lap 64 and was fortunate to get away with moving in the braking zone to block Norris on Lap 55 and going off-track and gaining an advantage on Lap 63, the greater narrative the media has tried to spin about him being a dangerously irresponsible if not “dirty” driver in the aftermath of it all is overblown. For one, he was able to race cleanly in Saturday’s sprint during the early tussle with the two McLarens to maintain the lead, so it’s not as if he’s incapable of clean racing. Could his decision making have been better in the moment? Definitely. Is he the only race leader in history to resort to risky or questionable tactics to defend his lead? Definitely not. As for Norris, I think any criticism of his divebombing (attempting to overtake by braking very late on corner entry) completely missed the real issue. Divebombing is a legitimate tactic, and Norris is far from the only driver to use it. That he specifically only attempted to overtake Verstappen by divebombing down Turn 3 on a track that’s ripe with overtaking opportunities was what hurt him in the end because it made him as easy to read as a picture book. That being said, it would be extremely unfair to try and mould this one instance into some greater false narrative that Norris lacks racing IQ. In fact, almost nothing about this crash and everything that led up to it should be dragged into some sort of greater narrative—I’m talking to you, McLaren team leads.
The only thing that should be seriously discussed about the Norris-Verstappen crash was just how slow the stewards were in reviewing and handing out penalties when it mattered. That the first thing that came up after contact on Lap 64 was a 5 second penalty on Norris for exceeding track limits—on Lap 59—was cringeworthy, especially since anyone paying attention could have called it right when it happened. We’ll never know if an earlier ruling could have completely prevented the crash, but it’s embarrassing that the stewards weren’t able to announce important information sooner.
If you’re still not entirely sure who my favorite driver on the grid is (not to mention my favorite team), I’m glad! It means I’ve done alright resisting the temptation to honk about them. I’ll be sure to keep that up in the future.
If you’ve made it through the whole post, thank you so much! I know it was a long one, but hopefully you found it both enjoyable and helpful!