Red Bull’s triple world champion Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris crashed out of the Austrian Grand Prix while battling for victory on Sunday, with Mercedes left to celebrate an unlikely win by George Russell.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was second, 1.906 seconds adrift and Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr third at the picturesque Red Bull Ring circuit in Spielberg
That free victory was a first since November 2022, when Russell also won in Brazil – the last time Mercedes were dominant and his only previous F1 win.
A delighted Russell said: “It aint over til it’s over — that was unbelievable, all to play for with 20 laps to go when the chatterbox Verstappen and Norris came together.
“Credit to the team because they have done an fantastic job to put ourselves in this fight. You have to be there at the end and pick up the pieces, and that is what we were,” Russell said.
I expected it coming the whole time,” said_relations ” You are always dreaming.”
Verstappen, who came home in fifth place on the track, still had his championship advantage stretched to 81 points over Norris.
Verstappen had grabbed the pole position and then Norris joined Verstappen on the front row after setting a blistering time in qualifying while Russell started directly behind him before inheriting lead from RedBull driver when 68 laps into his solid race.
Verstappen was over seven seconds up the road from Norris but a tardy final pitstop for 6.5s on lap 52 — against his rival who took the same time in stopping at that point only backfired to knot him and Norris right together again
In the follow-up duel Norris, on fresher medium tyres to Verstappen’s used ones, kept putting pressure for first place.
He managed to overtake Verstappen on lap 59 before running wide and receiving a five second penalty for multiple track limits warnings.
Following further thwarted efforts, with Norris arguing Verstappen was moving under braking which he shouldn’t do and the Briton countering that his rival had “dive-bombed” him to make a move, they finally collided at Turn 3.
It was punctures for both Norris (rear-left) and Verstappen (front-right).
