Alex Albon

F1 2020 Styrian Grand Prix Review: Ferrari’s fumble, Norris shines again

Posted on by Graham Chapple

Well, the Styrian Grand Prix was a little less eventful than last week’s Austrian Grand Prix but one that Lewis Hamilton converted pole to victory unchallenged, followed by teammate Valterri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in third.

Not the most eventful race, it probably could’ve done with a safety car close to the end but alas… The last few laps provided some entertainment but all in all, the action at the front was a little lacking.

Mercedes were able to solve their sensor dramas that gave them a scare last week and with Valterri Bottas behind Hamilton on the starting grid, the outcome was always going to be that Hamilton would take the victory. Verstappen did his best but he was powerless to catch Hamilton and powerless to stop Bottas late in the race.

Valterri Bottas should be fairly happy with P2. He was disappointing in qualifying in the wet and no where near Hamilton on Saturday, starting P4 behind Sainz even. He did well to finish ahead of Verstappen and still leaves Austria with the lead of the championship. Next week is a big week: Hungary is Hamilton territory, and Bottas needs to find a way to defeat Hamilton there. It’s early, but it could be a defining moment in this year’s championship. No pressure, Valterri.

Mercedes were able to play the strategy well after Red Bull jumped on the fear of an undercut from Bottas, and Mercedes were able to just leave Bottas out and use that tyre advantage to gobble Verstappen later on. Verstappen did well to hold on for as long as he did against Bottas but little he could do in the end to keep the Mercedes behind. Even his attempt to set the fastest lap didn’t go to plan as he pitted onto softs, thwarted by Carlos Sainz. Still, good for Verstappen to get some points on the board.

Verstappen’s teammate, Alex Albon, did not have a good race. Sure, he finished in P4 but was lucky not to either get overtaken by Perez late on or hit off by Perez out of Turn 4. In addition, he was about 30 seconds behind Verstappen before Verstappen made his late pitstop onto the softs for a fastest lap run and that’s just not good enough — far, far too far behind Verstappen on such a short track. Whether he had an issue with his car, who knows, but Albon was way off in qualifying and way off in the race.

Red Bull, to be fair, weren’t that far off the pace for a large part of the race, so maybe Hungary will be a better source of joy for the Austrian outfit.

Let’s talk Ferrari…

After their pace was exposed last weekend when Sebastian Vettel was knocked out in Q2, Ferrari brought forward their planned upgrades for Hungary to Austria for the Styrian GP. With how wet Saturday was, it was hard to get a grasp on Ferrari’s pace and their upgrades, but it was even harder to get an idea for how their upgrades worked on Sunday as Charles Leclerc made contact with teammate Vettel heading up to Turn 3 in an ambitious move on the inside…

Leclerc has taken ownership for his part in it (often harsh on himself) but it was a pretty ambitious attempt on the part of Leclerc that ended in both Ferraris DNF-ing. Ferrari needed the data for those new parts and the fact that both cars ended up in the garage in the first five laps is not acceptable for them.

If this was Sebastian Vettel, there’d be an uproar, so it’s only fair that Leclerc take the heat for this — he has to be better. There’s never a good time to crash into your teammate but especially now for Ferrari…

Oh to be a fly on the wall in Maranello on Monday… They have serious problems.

Lando Norris, once again, shone as he picked up a handy P5 after a hectic few last laps after Lance Stroll’s dive-bomb on Ricciardo lost them both time to Norris, who overtook Ricciardo, then Stroll on the last lap before overtaking Perez into the last corner, the Mexican’s lack of front wing after contact with Albon almost costing him significant points.

Norris drove a strong race and will pick up the plaudits but he can definitely thank Lance Stroll for his part in it all — not sure if Norris gets both Ricciardo and Stroll if Stroll doesn’t lunge Ricciardo like that. He also now sits third in the championship, well on his way to surpassing his total from last year in a matter of races.

Carlos Sainz had a tough race. He was running strongly but a tough pitstop and tyre wear on the second stint meant he finished in a lowly P9 having started in P3. P5 was a possibility (Sainz was convinced of that) but it wasn’t meant to be… The results haven’t flattered Sainz so far and the gap between himself and Norris isn’t totally reflective of how close they are.

Speaking of the Racing Points, they can bemoan their lack of pace on Saturday in the wet as to why they didn’t maximise their Sunday. Had they qualified in the top-10 as they should have, who knows where they end up. They were much quicker this weekend than last, it seemed like. Perez did an admirable job from 17th but was a little sloppy in his overtake attempt of Albon, damaging his wing and costing himself P5. He can thank the shorter finish line of the Red Bull Ring for allowing him to keep P6 instead of falling to P8.

Lance Stroll had a decent enough race and got away with his dive-bomb on Ricciardo by avoiding a penalty but picked up some solid points nevertheless. He needs to continue to do that, especially if rumours of Sebastian Vettel floating around are to be believed.

Speaking of Ricciardo, Sunday was an example of why he earns the big bucks and why he has the reputation he has. He would’ve had P6, maybe even P5 with Perez’s foibles were it not for Stroll’s dive. He had every right to not be pleased with the overtake attempt and he wasn’t, really.

“Firstly he didn’t really get past, he forced both of us off the track,” Ricciardo said to Sky Sports F1 post-race. “I’ll always be critical of myself and I should have closed the door but I don’t think he was ever making the move so I think it was desperate.

“I think Lando was coming and I think he had to do something otherwise Lando was going to eat him up. I take the apex and we crash, so that is a frustrating end and we lost a position to Lando…”

I think he’s right to be pretty annoyed about the move and pretty annoyed the stewards didn’t do anything about it. Renault then decided to file a protest against the legality of the ‘Tracing Point,’ so we’ll see what happens with that…

Esteban Ocon can count himself unfortunate, he was running well before being forced into an early retirement with what was the same issue that forced Ricciardo to retire last week. Renault, be it engine or otherwise, have a reputation of unreliability so this only adds to that.

Daniil Kvyat picked up a solid point in P10 after a strong race, not much to say there just a solid drive from Kvyat.

Kimi Raikkonen had a strong drive to 11th as Alfa Romeo fared a little better this week compared to last week on pace. Haas also enjoyed a better weekend after a double-DNF last weekend.

George Russell will be pretty disappointed after his error on lap 1 basically put him out of any contention of anything after starting from his highest ever position.

…And I think that about covers it?

F1 now moves to Hungary, a very different track compared to the Red Bull Ring. Will Red Bull be closer to Mercedes next week?

Time shall tell…

F1 2020 Austrian Grand Prix Review: Albon’s big chance?

Posted on by Graham Chapple

(Image: @F1)

F1 2020 returned with a bang in Austria, a race that was eventually won by Mercedes’ Valterri Bottas, following suit on his start from 2019 where he also took the first victory of the season.

The race was set to be a little uneventful as the Mercedes pair of Bottas and Lewis Hamilton — starting from 5th after a late protest by Red Bull over Hamilton’s qualifying investigation — just drove away from the field, their pace was what everyone feared.

However, the safety car would have a say on this race on multiple occasions and the one that blew the race open was the safety car deployed after George Russell and Romain Grosjean’s quick-fire retirements on lap 50/51. The Mercs were already having to back off of Austria’s notorious kerbs, with Mercedes fearing post-race that both cars might not make it to the end of the race.

With the field closing up, the Mercedes’ wouldn’t be able to take it easy: no more margin to manage after the safety car closed the field up. Added to that, a number of drivers behind Bottas and Hamilton made pitstops onto softer tyres while the Mercedes pair stayed out on the hards.

Sergio Perez’s older mediums wouldn’t pose a problem but the new softs put on Red Bull’s Alexander Albon made you wonder if they would put pressure on the leading duo.

Sure enough, Albon put instant pressure on Hamilton and his hard compound tyres, trying his luck around the outside of Turn 4. The result is as you know…

You could look at this incident with Hamilton from a few different perspectives.

In some ways, Albon could’ve maybe been more patient. The opportunity to pass Hamilton would’ve surely come again the next lap, if the opportunity wasn’t clear-cut when he tried, he could’ve waited. You could look at it that way.

On the other hand… Albon was through on the outside. His car was ahead of Hamilton’s and he left more than enough space for Hamilton, who definitely could have applied some more steering-lock heading into Turn 4 and had a lot more space to his right-hand side to utilise. I do think part of that from Hamilton’s side was some understeer but he didn’t do a lot to avoid hitting Albon either.

Some people thought a 5-second penalty wasn’t harsh enough, Toto Wolff thought it was too much (?). At the time, I actually thought the stewards would call it a racing incident but they slapped Hamilton with 5-seconds in the end, demoting him from 2nd to 4th.

I know it’s the first race, but how many other opportunities is Albon going to get this season to have a legitimate chance of nabbing a race win? Max Verstappen isn’t going to be out of every race, Red Bull aren’t going to have a tyre advantage like that over Mercedes at the same time the German outfit are nursing problems at that stage of the race. Was that his big chance to win a race?

Whether Albon would’ve gone on to win the race if he had passed Hamilton, that would appear to have been unlikely, as Albon would later retire from the race close to the end, with Red Bull suspecting a power unit failure. Honda’s initial assessment points to a ‘PU electrical fault’.

If that is indeed the case, maybe it didn’t matter that Albon collided with Hamilton from his point of view…

How much more cruel would it have been to overtake Hamilton, overtake Bottas and then suffer that suspected power unit failure? At least this way Lando Norris got a podium out of it by way of Hamilton’s penalty… It just wasn’t meant to be for Alex Albon on Sunday.

Moving onto of Hamilton, I think it was clear he had the pace advantage over Bottas in the race but his error in qualifying/not claiming pole position put him on the back-foot for the race and cost him. Added to that, with Mercedes managing their issues from running on the kerbs, I think they just wanted to keep a 1-2 finish (Mercedes say they didn’t impose team orders) and didn’t need a potential collision between their two drivers — I think Hamilton had the pace to attack Bottas and overtake him. If Hamilton can claim pole position next week, I think he would probably drive away from Bottas. He is going to need to next week.

Moving onto Bottas, this was basically as good of a start as he could have wished for. Max Verstappen was ruled out of the equation early and Hamilton already 13 points adrift after his penalty. It was a great victory and certainly not a straightforward one, nursing the issues from running over the kerbs and the numerous safety car restarts.

Things move fast (no pun intended) in F1 but if Bottas can follow this result with another victory next week, it puts him in a solid spot. Bottas’ title hopes fell apart pretty quickly after his victory in Baku last year, so to validate a serious title challenge, Bottas needs to do the same thing next week, and that’ll be a good start. If he can do that in Hungary too? Maybe we can talk then about Valterri Bottas as a serious title contender…

Disappointing day for Red Bull to say the least… The season isn’t long, this was the worst thing that could’ve happened to Max Verstappen out of the gate. Red Bull needed things to go their way, they did not need a double DNF in the first race. Things can only be better next week.

I think Racing Point will be pretty disappointed with how their race unfolded too. Retirement for Lance Stroll doesn’t help, and Perez’s potential podium went up in flames when he received a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pit-lane (before being overtaken by Lando Norris on fresher tyres). Their race pace was good but I think they’ll be disappointed with what McLaren were hiding all this time. I’m sure they would’ve thought a podium was possible on Sunday after Verstappen’s retirement.

Speaking of Norris, he did a mega-job in qualifying on Saturday and did the business again in the race. His battle with Sainz late on was one of huge importance: any longer held up in that battle and he doesn’t finish on the podium. How and where he pulled that last lap out of — the lap that brought him within Hamilton’s 5-second window and the fastest lap of the race — I have no idea, but his podium is an excellent result for F1 itself, not just Norris who drove a blinder. Everyone is delighted for him.

That leads us nicely into the red cars: the Ferraris.

Their race pace was a little better than what qualifying showed but they’re still closer to Racing Point and McLaren than Red Bull. Charels Leclerc somehow managed to pull his Ferrari past Norris and into what would become 2nd place — more than what Ferrari could have imagined was possible heading into Sunday’s race.

Sebastian Vettel, on the other hand, did not fare as well. As his teammate overtook Carlos Sainz, Vettel decided to send an overtake up at Turn 3, but was even spinning before he made contact with Sainz in his attempt to get out of it. His pace after that was pretty bad — I believe he was still behind the Williams of George Russell when the Williams retired on lap 51 and eventually finished in 10th behind Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon and Antonio Giovinazzi. I’m going to assume his car was damaged in some way but…not great for Vettel.

Looking at the rest of the grid, Pierre Gasly had a quiet, solid race in 7th. Alpha Tauri were running well in this race and Daniil Kvyat was unfortunate to suffer what looked like a tyre-blowout (turning out to be a suspension failure after making contact with Esteban Ocon) towards the end of the race. Ocon was fairly far from his teammate this weekend but can be happy enough with 8th place, as will Giovinazzi with 9th place — that Alfa Romeo is not great, neither was Kimi Raikkonen’s tyre escapade.

Haas, meanwhile, decided to hop into a time-machine, running into brake troubles in a double DNF.

Overall, a great race for F1 to return with and the ending was absolutely fantastic, though it has to be said the reason it turned into what it did was because of that safety car on lap 52, forcing the field to close up while Mercedes were dealing with their issues — without that, we probably would’ve had a dull race.

Hopefully next week won’t be a procession and that we can at least see Max Verstappen in the mix too.

Will history repeat with Red Bull’s Gasly-Albon switch?

Posted on by Graham Chapple

Feature image: @ToroRosso

Formula 1 news has been pretty quiet as the one week mark passed on the summer break but that all changed on Monday morning as Red Bull announced that Toro Rosso’s Alex Albon will be making the jump to Red Bull while Pierre Gasly will return to Toro Rosso for the remainder of the season.

The news shouldn’t be surprising given how poor Gasly has been this season, but ultimately it is, it is a surprise.

Everything that had come out of the Red Bull camp — comments made at various times and various publications from both team principal Christian Horner and advisor Helmut Marko — said that Pierre Gasly would be given until the end of the season to try and turn things around, that they wouldn’t switch their driver lineup mid-season.

Comments like that aren’t thrown around for the sake of saying it and people don’t just ‘lie’ like that — it’s unprofessional and in poor taste, so I believe they were genuine at the time they were made.

But circumstances change, and I think there are a few reasons why Red Bull have decided — in spite of making those comments — that to ultimately make the switch mid-season.

The first one is the constructors championship.

It’s no secret that Red Bull have made a step recently, taking two wins in the last four races before the break at Austria and Germany, while almost taking victory at Hungary were it not for a masterclass strategy call from Mercedes. With their improvements and results through Verstappen, Red Bull are within striking distance of Ferrari in the constructors standings — sitting just 44 (blessed) points behind the Scuderia.

In all reality, Red Bull should already be ahead of Ferrari. While Verstappen has been in the form of his life and dragging that Red Bull probably further than it should, Gasly has severely let down Red Bull by scoring just 63 points to Verstappen’s 181 — just a hair over 25% of Red Bull’s total points so far this season.

With second place now a realistic target for the second half of the season, it makes sense for Red Bull to make this move, now that they are within touching distance of Ferrari and their car seems like it’s the next best after Mercedes (though, there are some power circuits coming up for Ferrari such as Spa where they have a chance to be closer).

The second reason was kind of highlighted by the Hungarian Grand Prix and some of the comments Christian Horner made after the race with regard being able to ‘protect’ Verstappen.

In the past, Mercedes have been able to use both of their cars to mix up strategies and force Ferrari into doing something that isn’t in their comfort zone. An example of this was last year’s Italian Grand Prix, where Mercedes were able to use both Hamilton and Bottas to engineer a Mercedes win from the sole Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, a race where Lewis Hamilton’s tyres outlasted Raikkonen’s.

In Hungary, there was nothing and no one to protect Verstappen from anything Mercedes wanted to do and with Gasly being no where in that race, Verstappen was left exposed.

Let’s talk about Gasly very briefly… He forced Red Bull’s hands with this one — he’s just been awful, sitting on 63 points in the standings and only five ahead of Carlos Sainz in a McLaren. Gasly has been no where near Verstappen in qualifying or in the race all season long, and the one time he finished ahead of Verstappen was Silverstone when Verstappen was rear-ended by Vettel. This move was coming, one way or another.

Gasly now enters a very dangerous part of his career back at Toro Rosso, because now he’s fighting to show he still belongs in Formula 1. How he handles this situation and how he responds to it on the track are going to be incredibly key to his F1 future because Red Bull have shown that they are not afraid to cut ties with their drivers — whether it’s academy drivers (Dan Ticktum) or F1 drivers (Daniil Kvyat).

Unlike Kvyat’s situation, there’s no driver, really, in the Red Bull academy waiting for an F1 seat as Gasly was in 2017 when Red Bull moved on from Kvyat. Pato O’Ward is too raw yet and unless Red Bull want to thank their engine partner Honda by promoting their junior driver, Nobaharu Matsushita, from F2 then who is going to take Gasly’s Toro Rosso seat for 2020? (And for a disclaimer, sorry, I don’t really believe in Sean Galael)

The only other driver I can think of would be Sebastian Buemi, and that’s not a big of a reach as you may think. You remember Brendon Hartley after all, right?

So, in that regard, Gasly should be safe for 2020, because as bad as he has been this season, he’s still better than any other option Red Bull have outside of F1.

Let’s talk about the switch from the opposite perspective… Red Bull ultimately went with Alex Albon for the remainder of 2019 and not Daniil Kvyat.

Firstly, I get it, I understand why.

Gasly may have been able to turn it around before the season ended but 12 races is a large enough sample size to read between temporary struggles and who he is this season, and things weren’t getting better near the summer break to warrant Red Bull waiting to see if a corner had been turned.

It’s a great decision by Red Bull — harsh as it may be — to give up on Gasly this season and start getting their ducks in a line for 2020.

Regardless if they kept Gasly for the rest of the season, Red Bull had a big decision to make with their second driver seat and it was probably going to involve them replacing Gasly anyways. You can understand why they may have shown hesitation promoting Alex Albon to a full-time seat for 2020, given how this Gasly experience just ended. But with Red Bull promoting Albon for the last nine races — with no guarantee for 2020 — they can get an eye in with Albon in that Red Bull seat and see what’s what, and this will only help in their decision making process for 2020.

And look, let’s get this out there. Albon has been impressive this season and deserves this shot in his own right — he’s been so much better than anyone, including Toro Rosso and Red Bull, could’ve ever imagined. For someone who, I still think, was a stopgap for Toro Rosso because Dan Ticktum failed to acquire his superlicence. And I said prior to the season he was probably the worst F2 driver coming up this year (and I still think that’s the case) but the gap is considerably smaller than I thought it would be.

But as is the case with Red Bull, they’ve opted for upside in their decision making rather than who is the better driver right now.

They lost out on a better driver in Carlos Sainz and got caught up in the potential of Gasly. Had they had Sainz from the beginning, none of these headaches would be bothering Red Bull… But alas…

Are Red Bull about to go down the same path and make the same possible mistake again by choosing Albon over Kvyat for these remaining nine races?

I think Kvyat is a better driver than Albon right now and I think he’s unlucky not to have been chosen for that seat for the remainder of the season.

I know, I know… People will say Kvyat had his chance etc. etc. but the reality is he’s not the same driver now than he was then: he’s better (not that he was ever bad to begin with) and I think deserves a second chance at Red Bull, I think he’s going to feel hard-done by that he wasn’t chosen and Albon was.

In their indecision last year, Red Bull lost Sainz to McLaren and while there aren’t as many open seats this year as there were last year, there’s a chance the same could happen this year with Kvyat.

Like Sainz, I’m sure Kvyat is ready for life outside of Red Bull and there’s a potential opening, maybe even two, at Haas. If Kvyat feels undervalued by Red Bull in light of this decision, Haas — or another team — can make their pitch and secure Kvyat, and that would take that option off of the table for Red Bull for 2020.

And if Albon, like Gasly, underperforms, where would Red Bull look for 2020 in the event Kvyat doesn’t want to wait for Red Bull to make their mind up, now that they’ve shown possible preference to Albon going forward by giving him this shot?

At first, I wasn’t sure Red Bull made the right decision but having thought about it, I think they’ve made the right decision for their team long-term by giving Albon this Red Bull trial, as much as I think Kvyat should’ve had it. And while they risk losing Kvyat in the process, I think Albon will impress enough to earn a 2020 seat.

For Kvyat, the worst case scenario is he’s at Toro Rosso next year again, but that isn’t awful because, most importantly, he’d still have a seat for 2020 before the absolute circus that’s going to be the 2021 driver market, where Kvyat has a chance at another seat. Best case for Kvyat, Albon flunks his test and Kvyat is promoted.

Once again, Red Bull are banking on upside (Albon) instead of experience and, right now, the better driver (Kvyat). What Red Bull are doing is risky but Albon surely can’t do any worse than what Gasly was doing and I think there’s more chance this move succeeds than fails — despite Albon’s limited experience — even if it means losing Kvyat.

It’s a risk worth taking.