Second Ferrari victory in a row, this time in Austria, literally at Red Bull, in front of an audience of completely ‘orange’ fans, despite the ‘sprint race’ in favor of the Dutch champion. It is not said that the fight in the world championship will be reopened but at least the satisfaction is great. Competitiveness is returning and Maranello’s reaction is to be marked on the calendar. Only a month ago, in fact, few would have bet on the possibility of seeing at least one of the two again on the top step.
In short: after a strong frustration at Silverstone, the Austrian race of today 10 July in Leclerc was well summarized by the wall with “amazing job, no words”. In short, today Charles has thrown away, almost in a stroke, the ghosts of unreliability of recent months. Almost, however, not quite.
The race
On closer inspection, in fact, he sweated cold. Even too much. There are still major technical problems, among other things for both cars, but at least the bad luck did not have a hand. And everything worked well on the wall too, starting from the execution of the tire change, in the strategies of the number and type of pit stops. However, Charles really squeezed his stomach until the end, because the fear of him, transmitted in worldwide, emerged in the last laps due to a bizarre accelerator. These are no longer the times in which a steel cable activated a ‘butterfly’: no, now Formula 1 has a lot, a lot of electronics, and when something seems not to work, the situation could precipitate a lot compared to a more mechanical and analogue era. . But luckily Charles did it: he took his red one a meter over the finish line. Unlike Sainz, who up to a certain point seemed capable of being able to contribute to a good double, then dropped to third place and finally forfeited due to a fire when there were 14 laps to go.
The podium
Leclerc, Verstappen, Hamilton, therefore, the final order of the podium. A curse of five races out of the top three, aggravated by two very heavy retirements, did not take away the second place in the world championship for the Ferrari driver, who is now 38 points behind Verstappen and 19 points above Perez, who is retired today due to a contact from Russell: it cost the Englishman only a five-second penalty, while the Mexican race accident resulted in a slip on the scree and an inexorable retirement. Something sporty, not uncommon and in any case tolerable. Especially considering that his fate has seen us well: the 18 points he still retains on Sainz Jr. are truly ‘given away’, because the Spaniard did not have the ‘foot’ of victory like last Sunday, but certainly with the second or the third place he deserved, Perez’s position in the standings seemed to have been conquered by now. The open flames of lap 57, however, put an end to every dream.
The ranking
Looking at the ranking, moreover, we must also congratulate Russell who, quietly, continues in a positive streak that bodes well for his future. After 11 races completed in the top flight this year, apart from a very painful retirement in front of the home crowd in Great Britain, he shows a range of leading positions: in the previous ten stages, in fact, he always finished between the third and fifth place. A constancy that puts him 19 points ahead of his teammate Hamilton: the seven-time champion, however, after a few difficult races, has started running again without excessive ambition but with regularity, so much so that today he conquers the third podium ( from third position) in a row. Of course, it is strange to see him in sixth place in the overall, but at least from today he also enters the ‘club’ of the highest ranking drivers who have already reached the three-figure scores.