Grand Prix 2025 Austrian Grand Prix

ive had quite a busy week that this race has sort of creeped up on me . but it is at the A1 ring Red Bull ring in austria, & for maybe the 1st time ever its not a sprint weekend. almost a 3rd home race for Max Verstappen, aside from Spa & Zandvoort. with the reason we have been racing here is due to red bull bankrolling the renovation. talking about verstappen this is the final race of tightrope he has been walking. as again 1 more penalty point & he will become only the 3rd driver since the turn of the millennium to be banned for a race & only the 2nd to reach 12 penalty points. following Grosjean in 2012 & Magnussen last season. im sure he wants to race at silverstone next weekend. even if he did joke post F1 75. about not wanting to come back after he got booed

but on austria its a great circuit, love the scenery & the elevation changes. the shortest qualifying lap of the whole season & interesting the majority of the top 10 shortest pole laps have taken place here
2020 Sakhir GP 53.377
1979 Dijon 58.790
1985 South African GP 1:02.366
2020 Austrian GP 1:02.939
2019 Austrian GP 1:03.003
2018 Austrian GP 1:03.130
2021 Austrian GP 1:03.720
2017 Austrian GP 1:04.251
2024 Austrian GP 1:04.314
2023 Austrian GP 1:04.391
1990 French GP 1:04.402

its supposed to be quite dry all weekend, which is a bit lucky when you see the forecast because they had thunderstorms & hail yesterday, more rain forecast every day from monday to friday. the big question is will mclaren win at this circuit for the 1st time since 2001 when David Coulthard won & Max's dad scored points for the final time in his F1 career

 

[F1Brits_90]

Mclaren thought that was too risky

yeah that was stating the obvious from the their race engineer

 

[F1Brits_90]

really enjoyed that race the 1st half was best of the season. great win from norris, exactly what he needed going into silverstone. although piastri will be cursing that decision to go with tyre offset. as it gave him a mountain that was too much to climb & killed the race as a spectacle. if only we had 10 more laps

ferrari are so infuriating why are they so rigid. "we discussed 2 stop we are doing 2 stop" why hire a 7x world champion if your not going to be flexible & trust if he thinks he can 1 stop

 

[F1Brits_90]

 

[Il_leone]

Lucky Russell did not win or it triggers ironically Verstappen 's clause fir his seat

The irony that a future teammate potentially took him out of the title race

Mclaren have got the constructors it's only the drivers that needs to be decided. They were in a different league at at least 0.5 seconds per lap faster

The fragile Merc engines may slow them down but it won't take the drivers title

Ferrari - a step forward but still not good enough

Williams - a shocker this week

Racing Bulls - Lawson outdrove Hadjar on a track he is familiar with. Perhaps the inter rivalry will start and some praise from Red Bull
would be nice

Red Bull - Did Verstappen save tissues for his fans? Ain't simply lovely anymore

Tsunoda- Surely they can't drop him causing more chaos

 

[cider_and_toast]

Williams - a shocker this week

100 percent down to lack of ability and funds to upgrade the car.

Fully expect them to be near the back of the grid for the remainder of the season unless they can stumble across some helpful updates for minimum resources.

Shame as it was almost like the old days for a while.

 

[Brogan]

Fully expect them to be near the back of the grid for the remainder of the season unless they can stumble across some helpful updates for minimum resources.

They obviously need to increase the catering budget ...

 

[Johnny Carwash]

A thumping victory for McLaren today, it’s also nice to see the two McLaren drivers being able to race each other.
Also shout out to Gabriel Bortoleto for securing his first F1 points.

 

[F1Brits_90]

100 percent down to lack of ability and funds to upgrade the car.

Fully expect them to be near the back of the grid for the remainder of the season unless they can stumble across some helpful updates for minimum resources.

Shame as it was almost like the old days for a while.

i heard an interview with james vowles that the last time the 2025 car was in wind tunnel was january 2nd. they have got all the eggs in the 2026 basket

A thumping victory for McLaren today, it’s also nice to see the two McLaren drivers being able to race each other.

in the final stages 7 tenths quicker than leclerc & 1.5 seconds quicker than russell.

i can imagine. that next week piastri will take the 1 second option & not the 4 second delta. he lost the race on lap 21

 

[cider_and_toast]

i can imagine. that next week piastri will take the 1 second option & not the 4 second delta. he lost the race on lap 21.

It seemed as though Piastri thought he'd be able to bang in a couple of blitz laps once Norris pitted for the first time and they never came. That was mostly down to his lock up a few laps earlier.

The dice never quite landed in Piastri's favour throughout the race with a slow first stop, Colapinto trying to squish him and then traffic at all the wrong times.

Norris made hay while the sun shone.

 

[Johnny Carwash]

Colapinto trying to squish him

More concerned about getting a slipstream,than looking in his mirrors.

 

[FB]

Bit of a slow burner of a race, I wondered when it started why I turned over from watching the GT3 race at Spa, but then it got going. I was a little concerned when Norris' engineer told him about damage to the front wing as I don't think he is a mentally strong as Piastri and it would have been an excuse for him to get overtaken.

Oh, and Karun Chandhok was awful.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Oh, and Karun Chandhok was awful.

they certainly future proofing, as i dont think Harry Benjamin has commenated with the same person twice. my favourite was him & davidson.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Ben Edwards and John Watson were the Rolls Royce of F1 commenting.

 

[P1]

Thought this was interesting.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/making-love-to-his-exhaust-horner-baffled-by-mclarens-f1-austrian-gp-stamina/10737782/

Red Bull needs to build their car for Combat.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Thought this was interesting.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/making-love-to-his-exhaust-horner-baffled-by-mclarens-f1-austrian-gp-stamina/10737782/

Red Bull needs to build their car for Combat.

 

[The Artist.....]

It seemed as though Piastri thought he'd be able to bang in a couple of blitz laps once Norris pitted for the first time and they never came. That was mostly down to his lock up a few laps earlier.

The dice never quite landed in Piastri's favour throughout the race with a slow first stop, Colapinto trying to squish him and then traffic at all the wrong times.

Norris made hay while the sun shone.

The "race" was a little artificial though - Piastri was hanging on to Norris for the first twenty laps by sitting in the DRS zone. At one stage, Norris edged the gap to just over a second, but it was just after the DRS detection zone, and so Piastri hauled him back in.

In the second part of the race, Piastri benefited from a tyre delta, although you got the impression that Norris was controlling things somewhat.

If there were only two DRS zones, I suspect that Norris would have broken away at the front - and Piastri would never have even had the opportunity to try to overtake him.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Little to argue with there.

As I said initially, this was Norris's weekend.

A Norris on song is quicker than Piastri but for a host of reasons he's not on song consistently enough.