Dramatic Verstappen/Norris collision gives Russell GP victory in Austria

A dramatic collision between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris gave George Russell and Mercedes a first Formula 1 victory in a year and a half at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Verstappen had absolutely dominated the first two-thirds of the race, with a lead of no less than eight seconds over Norris.

But he didn’t like an unfortunate long middle stint on hard tires and then a slow final pit stop where the left rear tire initially refused to let go, meaning Verstappen only recovered just before Norris.

The McLaren – on new tyres versus a used set for the Red Bull – quickly moved into Verstappen’s DRS range and launched one attack after another, with the two drivers increasingly commenting on each other’s driving.

A dive with twelve laps to go gave Norris the lead at the Turn 3 hairpin, but he claimed the line by running wide on the run-off, quickly giving the place back.

As it would turn out, that moment was Norris’ fourth violation of the track limits in the race, for which a five-second time penalty was imposed, but with that point not yet awarded, their battle continued.

The next time they came next to each other it was Verstappen who stayed ahead by going wide.

And then came the contact just before the hairpin bend. Due to a collision of the wheels, both cars got a flat tire and went off the road. Then a bizarre battle between the wheels of the cars started, in which both cars got badly damaged.

Norris judged that the damage to his car was too extensive and retired in the pits, but Verstappen came back and finished fifth. The stewards ruled the champion at fault for the collision and gave him a 10-second penalty. That made no difference to his result.

Apart from an early dice with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, Russell was clearly the best of the rest throughout behind Verstappen and Norris, so was in the perfect position to pick up the pieces after their clash and take an ecstatic victory claim.

Still, Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri has every right to feel robbed.

A controversial track limits penalty in qualifying saw him drop from third to seventh on the grid, but he still fought through well. Charles Leclerc was passed at the start, despite a collision between them that broke the Ferrari’s front wing, making light work for Sergio Perez’s Red Bull. He then overtook both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz during the race before finishing just 1.9 seconds behind Russell.

Sainz completed the podium, with Hamilton a distant fourth after a race with a time penalty for swerving wildly over the pit entrance at his first pit stop.

Haas drove an exceptional race, scoring points with both Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen in sixth and eighth place respectively, with no less of a car than Perez’s Red Bull.

Early first pit stops and excellent tire maintenance secured Haas’s result, with Perez limited by the damage sustained on the first Piastri/Leclerc lap.

Leclerc could get no further than eleventh as the RB of Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly – who engaged in another wild battle with Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon – completed the scoreboard.