Norris bounces back to win Austrian F1 GP
DPA
Spielberg (Austria)
Lando Norris bounced back from a catastrophic weekend in Canada to win the Formula One Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday ahead of McLaren team-mate and championship leader Oscar Piastri.
Norris went out in Canada a fortnight ago after a collision with Piastri, but in Austria the British driver started from pole and led throughout the entire race to take his third victory of the season.
Piastri finished second and tops the drivers' standings 15 points ahead of Norris. Charles Leclerc of Ferrari completed the podium in third.
'It was a tough race, pushing the whole way through, tricky and tiring. A 1-2 is exactly what we wanted, and we did it so I'm happy,' Norris said.
Home team Red Bull meanwhile met disaster, with world champion Max Verstappen knocked out of the race in the first lap after an incident with Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes, and Yuki Tsunoda finishing 16th.
The race The start of the race was aborted after Carlos Sainz of Williams failed to get away during the formation lap.
His car was stuck in first gear and he only managed to get moving after being pushed by track marshals. Because the mechanics touched the car, Sainz had to pull into the pit lane but during this attempt his brakes caught fire which meant 'game over' for him.
The race started with a delay of around 20 minutes, and Norris and Piastri went wheel-to-wheel in the first lap, but the polesitter hung on.
Behind then, Antonelli locked up and hit Verstappen, who was trying to fight with the Ferraris for fourth and third places. Neither of them could continue the race.
The safety car was deployed but the top three remained unchanged at the restart.
The two title contenders had a tight battle in the early stages, with Piastri briefly taking the lead on lap 11, only for Norris to snatch it back immediately after.
Piastri tried another move on Norris on lap 20, but locked up and almost hit his team-mate. But even after getting a new set of tyres, Piastri faced traffic and couldn't close the gap to Norris to attack again.
'Intense. I hope it was good watching, as it was pretty hard work inside the car. I tried my absolute best, probably could have done a better job when I just got ahead. A good battle, probably pushed the limits a little far,' Piastri said.
There was a scare for the championship leader on lap 54 as he came out of the pits side by side with the Alpine of Franco Colapinto.
Piastri had to take evasive action to avoid a collision as Colapinto forced him off the track and into the grass, an offence that resulted in a five-second penalty for the Argentinian.
The rest of the top 10 Leclerc lamented that 'the pace today was not enough' to compete with McLaren but celebrated as Ferrari returned to the podium.
'I don't regret anything we did today, we did the maximum,' he said.
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was right behind in fourth, followed by the Mercedes of George Russell and Liam Lawson of Racing Bulls.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso held on to claim seventh after a tight battle with Kick Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto in the final laps, but the Brazilian rookie still has a lot to celebrate as he took his first F1 points.
Kick Sauber had a second driver in the points with Nico Hülkenberg in ninth and Esteban Ocon of Haas completed the top 10.
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