First day

For the second year in a row, Austria had to lend a helping hand to Formula 1 and organize races instead of countries that cannot do it due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Thus, in 2020, the Styrian Grand Prix appeared in the calendar, named after the federal state where the Red Bull Ring is located.

This season, it again became a full-fledged stage of the royal races after the cancellation of the Canadian Grand Prix.

The fact that Austria is once again hosting two racing weekends should have been rejoicing at Mercedes.

Although the Spielberg track is owned by their main rivals Red Bull, it brought the German team two wins and one runner-up last year.

However, before the reporting race, Mercedes' losing streak reached three stages, and the gap between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen increased to 12 points.

Friday training clearly showed that the Austrian track has finally begun to justify the status of home for Red Bull.

Verstappen twice showed better time, while between him and the Mercedes drivers, someone was sure to wedge in - and Pierre Gasly in AlphaTauri, and Esteban Ocon in Alpine, and Daniel Riccardo in McLaren.

True, the Dutchman's partner Sergio Perez did not succeed in conquering the track so quickly - he was losing to Verstappen at least two-thirds of a second.

Mercedes' lack of pace was exacerbated by an unpleasant incident involving Valtteri Bottas.

It was deployed in the pit lane after trying to accelerate, almost hurting McLaren employees.

The stewards regarded the Finn's actions as quite dangerous and punished him with the loss of three places on the starting grid.

The Red Bull Ring is proving to be a tough test!

😯



We've got all of the drama and excitement from the second practice session right here ⬇️ # StyrianGP 🇦🇹 # F1

- Formula 1 (@ F1) June 25, 2021

Second day

On Saturday, Hamilton was able to seize the lead from Verstappen.

His best lap in the last free practice session was 0.2 seconds faster, beating the Dutch driver for the entire weekend.

Except for the Briton, the Red Bull racer did not miss anyone, despite the fact that he drove less distance than anyone else.

But in qualifying, Hamilton suddenly dropped out of the fight for the lead.

In the first and second segments, he showed only the sixth time, every time behind not only Verstappen, but also Bottas.

In the final round, the seven-time world champion entered the track first and, in the absence of traffic, was able to noticeably improve the result.

Verstappen started at the same time as the other pilots, but won 0.4 seconds over the main competitor.

The riders had one more try, and Hamilton decided to use it to the maximum to intercept pole position, but made a mistake on his last lap and was left without improving the position.

He even lost 0.032 seconds to Bottas in the fight for the first row of the starting grid, although in the end he settled on it thanks to a partner's penalty.

Verstappen won the qualification for the third time this season and brought his team the first pole position on the home track.

⚡️ @ Max33Verstappen was ...



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On another in qualifying 👏 # StyrianGP 🇦🇹 #F1@pirellisportpic.twitter.com/QXwna1o0p4

- Formula 1 (@ F1) June 26, 2021

Race

All pre-race layouts for Sunday must have been confused by the weather.

Forecasters confidently declared a high probability of rain precisely at those hours when the culmination of the weekend was supposed to take place.

However, their forecasts did not come true - as in all previous days, it was dry in Spielberg, and the air temperature was approaching 30 ° C.

Without rain, the start of the race almost turned out to be mundane.

Verstappen retained the lead over Hamilton, while McLaren driver Lando Norris, who started third, briefly skipped Sergio Perez ahead, but quickly regained his place on the intermediate podium.

Bottas never launched an attack to move up from fifth position.

But Pierre Gasly, who was driving behind the Finn, was in the spotlight.

He made a terrible start and began to descend, for which the other pilots were not ready.

A turmoil ensued, as a result of which the Frenchman retired from the race with a punctured wheel, and Charles Leclair of Ferrari and Nicholas Latifi of Williams immediately went to the pits.

Nikita Mazepin took advantage of the competitors' problems.

For a while, he rose from last place to 15th.

In the group of leaders, Norris still turned out to be superfluous.

Ten laps later, he missed both Perez and Bottas.

Verstappen increased the lead over Hamilton and secured himself a comfortable five seconds in relation to the world champion, but the Dutchman could not relax - all the leaders started the race on the softest tires, and they might need to be changed at any second.

Perez was the first of the leaders to enter the pits, and the team let him down - the pit stop was too long. Bottas took advantage of a competitor's hesitation and broke into third place. Red Bull took into account their mistakes, and Verstappen's tires were changed as quickly as possible. For some time he still got used to hard tires, but in the end he began to use them as efficiently as possible. Hamilton, at his best moment, reduced the loss to four seconds, after which he began to lag behind again.

In another duel between the pilots of Mercedes and Red Bull, Perez immediately declared his advantage.

He quickly caught up with Bottas and could attack the Finnish driver at any moment.

The Austrian team decided that for this he would need an even fresher set of tires, and again called for a pit stop.

The gap exceeded 21 seconds, but Perez won back one and a half, or even two seconds in one circle from Bottas.

There were just over ten laps to the finish line.

But Red Bull did not take into account the traffic generated by the pilots lagging behind.

No matter how fast Perez was traveling, his schedule of chasing Bottas still fell apart.

The Mexican lacked just one lap to catch up with the opponent and get on the podium - just before the finish they were separated by only half a second.

Bottas returned to the top three after three races.

Perez was unlucky with the fastest lap.

For a long time, it was he who claimed the bonus point.

But when Hamilton had already resigned himself to Verstappen's victory, the Mercedes driver received a new set of tires and tried to attack Perez's time.

At the last moment, the Briton got his way, and this allowed him to lag behind Verstappen by just 18 points after his fourth win of the season.

Mazepin, who successfully started the first race in Austria, was not so convincing the rest of the time.

He lost all the conquered positions and let his Haas partner Mick Schumacher go ahead.

The retirement of George Russell, who had a broken power plant, allowed Mazepin to finish 18th.