2021 Styrian Grand Prix News

It’s double bubble time for Formula One once again as it does back-to-back races at the same track for the third time in the past twelve months. It was the Styrian Grand Prix last weekend, it’ll be the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend. We take a look back at the former and a sneak peak ahead at the latter.  

Max Verstappen scored his 4^th win of 2021 – making it his most successful season yet – and the 14^th win of his career. This was also the first time the Dutchman has ever won back-to-back races. The win helped Red Bull to a 4^th win in-a-row, the first time the team has done this since the closing rounds of 2013. Verstappen has led a total of 332 laps in 2021 and has yet to complete a race lap outside the top four. Red Bull lead the constructor’s championship by 40 points, while Verstappen now leads the driver’s championship by 18.

Red Bull has five wins now in 2021, its best total since 2013. For power unit supplier Honda, it was the first time the company had taken four wins in-a-row since the beginning of the 1991 season.

For Mercedes it was an unsuccessfully successful weekend. Another double podium, it’s 4^th of 2021, did some major damage limitation on a weekend it seemed further away from Red Bull than ever. Lewis Hamilton remains one of two drivers who have completed very race lap of 2021 – 504 of them. For team-mate Valtteri Bottas, it was a return to the podium after a torrid few races during which his average finishing position fell from 6.75 to 8.125.

Mercedes finds itself with its biggest deficit in the constructor’s championship in the turbo hybrid era. The largest gap prior to this had been a 20 point deficit to Ferrari after the 2018 British Grand Prix.

McLaren stretched its points-scoring run to a brilliant 15 races thanks to Lando Norris. The British driver has finished in the points at every round in 2021, the only driver to do so, and has yet to finish lower than 8^th. Despite this, the team lost ground to Ferrari in it’s battle for 3^rd in the constructor’s championship – the gap down to 12 points.

Styria was welcome relief for Ferrari, just a week after it’s worst race result in over 40 years. After struggling in qualifying, both cars scored points for the 5^th time in 2021. Charles Leclerc having to put up one of his finest fightbacks after a first lap incident left him in near dead last.

It was heartbreak for Williams and George Russell after the Brit retired from 8^th place, having spent a solid 24 laps in that position. Williams have now gone 35 races without scoring a world championship point. Alpha Tauri experienced better fortunes by taking its 11^th straight points finish after Yuki Tsunoda scored for the 3^rd time in 2021. The Italian team remains ahead of Aston Martin in the standings, despite the latter outscoring it by three points in Styria.