We reached the ninth round of the championship. This time it was the turn of the Austrian Grand Prix. In 2014 we returned to welcome this circuit thanks to the influence of the Red Bull team. A circuit with many names, but generally known as Spielberg or Red Bull Ring. 4.318 kilometers and 71 laps that gave the victory to the driver of Mercedes Valtteri Bottas.
Bottas had a great weekend. During all free practice the Finn remained in third place. Although the free practice was quite complicated for many of the drivers. It was full of incidents. The drivers seemed to have a lot of trouble finding the limits of the track. The tires did not help after blistering, even some drivers had problems with the brakes like Kvyat and Hamilton. Despite that Bottas got the pole, maintained the first position in the starting grid and managed the race very well to take a deserved victory.
On the other side of the box happiness was not so much. After presenting a problem with the gearbox Lewis Hamilton had to change his gearbox. For that reason he had to assume a five grid position penalty on the starting. In addition to that the English driver did not have one of the best classifications of his life. The Mercedes driver got the third place, but with the penalty he had to start from the eighth position. While his direct rival, the German Sebastian Vettel obtained the second place in classification as well as in race. Hamilton was fourth. Problems with blistering tires hurt him. But he was not the only one who suffered, Bottas in the last laps also suffered blistering tires and Vettel was very close to overtaking.
What can we say about the situation of the Mclaren-Honda team? After finishing the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with two cars. The problems returned to the box of the men from Woking. Honda brought a new engine specification, which should add up to 30 horsepower. But the mechanics detected a fault in the engine of Alonso. That was why they replaced the engine and reassembled the specification of Baku in the car of the Spanish. Despite this the Spanish driver managed to qualify ahead of his teammate Vandoorne. But everything was frustrating right from the start. In the first corner Alonso and Verstappen were beaten by Kvyat. Both were out of the race and Kvyat received a drive through penalty.
The team that seems to be taking a step forward is Red Bull. Ricciardo was back on the podium. This time on third place, but a third place that gave some glory since today Red Bull ran at home. On the other hand Williams managed to save a very bad classification, since his two drivers managed to finish in the points.