Austrian GP analysis: A busy day for Race Control

A Grand Prix filled with overtakes, penalties and drivers complaining about one another. But, incase you missed the action last Sunday, here's the most talked about headlines from the weekend.

Penalty after Penalty

Let's just say race control definitely had their hands full this weekend. Throughout the entire weekend we had endless laps deleted due to drivers surpassing track limits.

According to a spokesman for the governing FIA, race management had to look into more than 1,200 incidents throughout the 71-lap competition when a car was believed to have possibly strayed off the circuit.

Throughout the Austrian Grand Prix almost all of the drivers on the grid exceeded these track limits, got a time penalty or the Black and White Flag...

This led to a confusing end result that got even tricker after Aston Martin lodged a protest against the finishing classification .

After Aston Martin pleaded their case, the decision was made at 9:30pm that more penalties would be dished out.

Penalties in a Grand Prix is not unfamiliar, but the sheer amount this race was quite the surprise, even overshadowing the excellent racing this weekend.

A race finish shouldn't be determined by the amount of five/ten second penalties, it should be the pure racing and strategy to determine that result.

Penalties can be entertaining as there's more at stake for place finishes, but this race implemented far too many and confused spectators.

But what can be learned from this embarrassing display of penalties?

Changing the track

It's no secret that F1 cars keep getting bigger and faster, especially in corners. F1 cars have developed in a way that they can take a corner faster than ever before. Maybe this new found speed is what's causing cars to exceed the white line of track limits.

A needed widening of the track or at least limit area would benefit next years race.

However, the Austrian track is not only used for F1 but also Motorcycle racing. This limits what can be done to the track.

In my opinion, the FIA could implement bolt-on sausage kerbs that can be taken off at the end of the GP , so it wouldn't affect other race categories.

Yet a sausage kerb may not appear again at the Austrian GP, as in 2016 Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen branded the kerb as "Dangerous" after an aray of suspension failures up and down the grid.

"We've seen a couple of incidents already. I don't know how many more it's going to take before a car ends up in the wall and perhaps someone gets hurt." - Lewis Hamilton on the possibilities of what could happen by these kerbs in 2016.

The issue with visibility

It doesn't help that the 2023 cars have next to no visabilty, drivers can only really see the top of their tyres and what's infront of them.

This leads to it being harder for drivers to really push for speed and not go over the track limits.

The FIA has discussed investing into new technology to try and find better ways to sort these issues on track instead of five hours after the race has finished.

This technology wont be something we see anytime soon.

Also with the amount of orange flares being spread everywhere, I doubt that helped either.

I hope the FIA and teams together can come up with a soultion to the visability issues that keeps dampening the racing for F1.

Those who came out clean

Some say that it can't be that big of a deal as Guanyu Zhou and George Russell did not have penalties or black and white flags waved.

But it's important to remember that these drivers weren't up at the top of the grid racing hard.

They had more conservative drives compared to the others at the top of the grid. There was no need to push for speed.

I don't think it's the case of those who got penalised can't drive, I really do think this track needs some changes.

The FINAL results

Incase you're still confused about which driver finished where, here's the list below:

Hopefully next years Austrian GP won't have the same controversy.

Hamilton unhappy at Mercedes

It's been no secret Mercedes haven't been dominating as they have done for so long. It seems the pendulum has finally swung in Red Bulls favour.

However, Lewis seemed to have finally had enough with the Brackley based team.

His radio messages where fuelled with frustrations, as well as pointing out other drivers exceeding the limits of the track.

Hamilton wasn't happy that he was the first to recieve a penalty of the Grand Prix...

"the car is slow mate...The car won't turn...Car was really hard to drive today"- Just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Hamiltons complaints.

The endless radio messages to the Mercedes team seemed to have started to annoy Toto Wolff slightly.

"Lewis the car is bad, we know, please drive it"- Toto stepped in on lap 52

Lewis never made a complaint again. Howbeit, him dropping to 8th after the Aston Martin protest poured more salt into the wound.

However, Hamiltion was already not having the best start to the weekend as a comment he made talking about Red Bulls unshakeable dominance resulted in a cold response from Verstappen.

"I think the FIA should probably put a time when everyone is allowed to start developing on the next year's car... so then no one can get an advantage on the next year, cause that sucks...They don't have to make any changes to this year's car any more as they're so far ahead. He's cruising at 100 points ahead of us." - Lewis discussing Red Bulls car for next year with Sky sports.

An understandable point, as Max has won every race this year with seconds to spare each Sunday. Although it's a bit ironic to complain about a dominant era for a team. The Mercedes camp had that dominance from 2014 - 2021.

"We weren't talking about that when he was winning his championships, so I don't think we should now," - Max didn't put up with Hamiltions comments.

Again, Max has a fair point! Many where saying the same thing when Sebastian Vettel Dominated the sport, and same with Lewis.

I do think that all teams developing the car at the same time will even out the playing field. But how does the FIA police this?

You can't police teams from thinking of ideas on how to make their car go faster. That's impossible.

I understand Hamiltion's frustated, for the first time in a while he's not fighting for P1, but give Mercedes more time to adjust to the rule change, and bring more upgrades.

Once that is complete I see them fighting again for that top spot. Not every team can dominate the sport forever...

Carlos Vs Ferrari's Orders

I dread Ferrari team radio messages, as everytime me and many other fans around the globe fear what awful strategy/order we will hear.

This time (which is not a surprise) Carlos Sainz yet again has been done dirty.

During the first few laps, Sainz was requesting team orders from Ferrari as he attempted to pass Leclerc while staying within DRS range.

During the virtual safety car, he was obliged to double stack and was handed a five-second time penalty for breaking track regulations.

The Spaniard granted Charles Leclerc a 12.9 second lead from Sergio Perez as Carlos held off the Mexican, which definitely secured Leclercs 2nd place finish.

Although, Carlos felt his teamwork was not repaid.

"Clearly, I’m not happy right now about what happened today...it makes you feel like a fool. Not the best feeling, for sure...I had a better pace and played as a team" - An unfair ending for Carlos' race.

On a positive note, at least this year in Austria he was able to finish the race instead of having his car go on fire again...

Charles is the number one driver

I mentioned in my Candian GP analysis about Ferrari making Carlos not fight Leclerc.

"Do not attack Charles" - A quick and stern message during the Austrian GP from the Ferrari Pitwall.

With overtime this call is forced upon Carlos you can hear his pent up frustration. Yes, occasionally being asked to not attack your teammate could be beneficial.

For example, staying in postion and holding the rival driver behind so your teammate infront can create a gap and over take the other rival ahead.

Both could move up the grid with eachothers help this way.

Nevertheless, this did not happen. Originally Carlos finished 4th, but once penalties had been applied five hours after the race Sainz was demoted to P6. If Carlos was allowed to fight for his place he may have been able to be higher up the grid and created a bigger gap to not be affected by the penalties.

On the other hand, At least the Monegasque was appreciative for the help...

"Carlos made my life a bit easier by doing a great defence. I could see all of it on the screen which was quite exciting and that was good." - Charles Leclerc when talking to Sky Sports.

I believe this angry Carlos will only blow up in the Italians team face at some point this season.

Especially, as the team upgrades seem to be giving them that extra pace. Sainz will want to fight to be on the podium.

Nyck De Vries Underpressure

The pressure isn't letting up on Nyck De Vries. This has not been a good start to his F1 career.

The usual paddock rumours were serculating about how much time Nyck has left at AlphaTauri. According to the rumours, he only has the races between now and the summer break to convince Red Bull that he's worthy of his seat.

This Grand Prix originally had him finish 15th but moved down two places to 17th due to his penatlies.

Not to mention him having yet another incident of trying to take Kevin Magnussen out, landing De Vries two penatly points on his license...

However, De Vries tried his best to stay optimistic.

“I still have a lot to improve on, and I’m certainly not yet at the level I want to be, but collectively, we are trying to consistently improve.”

Nyck was questioned on the pressure for keeping his seat and seemed to not let the rumours affect him.

“I still have a lot to improve on, and I’m certainly not yet at the level I want to be, but collectively, we are trying to consistently improve.”

Although when quizzed on scoring points for the team the optimism seemed to have left...

“If confirmation is scoring points, then they’re asking something quite difficult. Almost unrealistic, yes.”- Definitely something Helmut Marko would not like to hear...

Nyck may not seem like he's feeling the heat of these rumours, But you can't tell me this won't make him sweat a bit.

I hope to see Nyck up the grid more and fighting for points in the mid-field. The hype around his name from last year and the start of this year has seem to fallen short.

If this improvement doesn't happen i'm afraid he'll lose his seat and Liam Lawson may take it (At least that's the rumour).

McLaren Upgrades

McLaren made quite the improvement. Landos P4 finish was the teams best since Qatar 2022. But what made this p4 finish possible?

The revised bodywork has bigger side-pods and distinct, deep waterslides, similar to Aston Martin's design strategy. Recently, teams like Ferrari and Mercedes have started to favour this design philosophy. Aston Martin design is definitely the car teams have been drawing ideas from.

Side-pods and sidewalls are of the upmost importance when designing an F1 car as these components push out the "Dirty Air" making the car gain top speeds.

In order to maximise the amount of downforce produced by the diffuser and beam wing, the waterslides' function is to steer clean air towards them.

On top of these developments, I believe McLaren have also made changes to their floor.

Although we can't see what has been changed (Especially after Monaco with Sergio's' flying car), we know that the changes have made a difference.

Oscar Piastri may have finished 16th this Grand Prix, but it's important to remember this upgrade was only done on Landos car, not Oscars.

So, it's still a positive change for the team and hopefully Oscar will reap the benefits too.

To conclude, this weekend was quite the busy one! An entertaining race, even though Max stormed through the field once again to take victory.

But a race that had three/four cars battling at once for position, great overtaking and defence. Yes we had the same winner but a quality race to watch.