Lewis Hamilton produced a brilliant first stint to seize control and ease to victory at the Styrian Grand Prix.
The world champion built up a five-second advantage over Max Verstappen and managed the gap as the Red Bull didn’t have the pace to trouble the Mercedes.
Instead, the Dutchman’s focus was on holding off Valtteri Bottas behind, but after pitting 10 laps later, the Finn had too much speed in the closing laps and moved up to second at the second attempt.
Max would pit again for soft tyres and scored the fastest lap as he settled for third.
The race began with drama at the start, as Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel collided at Turn 3 on the opening lap.
A lunge from the Monegasque up the inside saw his Ferrari pitched into the air on the sausage kerb, taking out his teammate’s rear wing and later retiring himself with floor damage.
Kimi’s view of the Ferrari incident ?#AustrianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/RzxwEPYsAy
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 12, 2020
The second half of the race was dominated by Sergio Perez fighting through the field from 17th on the grid, and the Mexican made his way up to fifth with ease.
But in trying to pass a disappointing Alex Albon for fourth would damage his front wing against the Red Bull.
The lost performance would allow a charging Lando Norris to come through and snatch fifth at the final corner with Perez just staying ahead of teammate Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo over the finish line.
Carlos Sainz looked comfortable in fifth in the first stint but a poor pit-stop dropped him down the order to ninth in the McLaren.
Daniil Kvyat would claim the final point in 10th for AlphaTauri.
The Alfa Romeo’s and Haas’ were seen battling it out the entire race but it was Kimi Raikkonen who got the edge over Kevin Magnussen in 11th and 12th with Romain Grosjean 13th and Antonio Giovinazzi 14th.
Pierre Gasly followed in 15th as George Russell undid his best start in F1 by running off the track at Turn 6 early on.
That dropped the Briton to 16th ahead of Williams teammate Nicholas Latifi.
LAP 26/71
Agony for Ocon ? The Frenchman’s race is over #AustrianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/yRfraaMaEz
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 12, 2020
Then came the retirements with Esteban Ocon seeing his strong qualifying come to nothing as he pulled into the garage with a mechanical issue to join the two Ferraris.
After two frantic weeks in Spielberg, F1 now leaves Austria and crosses the border for the Hungarian Grand Prix to complete the first triple-header of the season.
