Lando Norris held off fast-chasing teammate Oscar Piastri to claim victory at the Austrian Grand Prix in a grandstand finish.
Piastri was the quicker of the two for much of the race, but strategy left him needing to close 4.3s in the final 16 laps to claim victory. The pair were separated by just under 2s with three laps to go, but in equal machinery on wearing tires it wasn’t enough time for Piastri to get himself within striking distance.
Norris took the checkered flag with a 2.695s advantage, converting from pole for a much-needed victory to shrink his championship deficit to 15 points.
“It was a tough race, pushing the whole way through,” he said. “Tricky, hot, tiring, but the perfect result for us as a team. We had a great battle, that’s for sure. It was a lot of fun – for me a lot of stress, but a lot of fun.
“A one-two is exactly what we want, and we did it again, so I’m very happy.”
Piastri got the perfect start thanks in part to Norris sweeping left to cover Charles Leclerc off the line. With Leclerc committed to the inside, Piastri found plenty of space around the outside to take second place.
The race was briefly neutralized with Norris leading Piastri – Andrea Kimi Antonelli had locked his rear axle at Turn 3 and wiped out Max Verstappen on the apex in a collision that will be investigated after the race – and at the resumption the McLaren drivers quickly left the rest of the field behind as they engaged in a private battle for the lead.
The two traded fastest laps as Piastri prodded his teammate’s defenses. His first opening came on lap 11, when Norris ran marginally deep at Turn 1, giving the Australian a chance to make a move around the outside at the top of the hill.
Norris cut back to take the inside line and run the sister car side by side into Turn 4, where he retook the lead. Piastri considered diving down the Briton’s inside at Turn 6 but thought better of it, conceding the battle. He had another look four laps later, when a good exit from Turn 3 gave him a chance at the end of the top straight, which Norris deftly covered.
Piastri had a final look on lap 20, with pit stop priority on the line at the end of the first stint. Determined to get through, he ambitiously attempted to outbrake Norris into Turn 4 from the inside but dramatically locked up, coming perilously close to wiping out his teammate before sailing wide. The team said it was “too marginal” and told him not to try it again.
Having successfully absorbed Piastri’s pressure, Norris duly pitted at the end of lap 20 for a fresh set of hard tires.
Piastri, however, held off, telling his engineer he would prefer to deal with a larger gap but a bigger tire offset than simply cover his teammate. He entered the lane four laps later, but a 0.3s slower stop blew out his deficit to 6.5s as the second stint entered its rhythm.
The gap waxed and waned as the duo lapped cars at the rear of the field through the middle stint, which Norris ended with 3.9s in hand when he made his second tire change on lap 52.
Piastri stopped on the following tour and gained 0.5s through a faster stop, but he was bizarrely balked by the lapped Franco Colapinto, who shoved the Australian onto the grass as he appeared to misjudge his proximity to the McLaren as he battled Yuki Tsunoda for 14th place.
Colapinto was penalized 5s for forcing another car off track. It set Piastri’s target to Norris at 4.3s at the end of lap 54, and he began reeling in his teammate immediately.
“I need some pace. Please help,” Norris radioed as the margin shrank to less than 2s with 10 laps to go.
He was told to focus on the high-speed corners, but he also benefited from lapped traffic around the 2.69-mile lap, gaining DRS from the slower cars to help him defend against his faster teammate.
It was a battle between Gabriel Bortoleto and Fernando Alonso for seventh that put the final nail in Piastri’s comeback campaign, putting distance between him and the leader for most of the final lap to prevent any late moves and lock Piastri into second place.
“I tried my absolute best and probably could’ve done a better job when I just got ahead momentarily,” he said. “It was a good battle – a bit on the edge at times and probably pushed the limits a bit far, but it was good racing.”
Charles Leclerc completed the podium at the end of a lonely race for the Monegasque, who finished 17s behind the leaders but more than 9s ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton.
“I rate out weekend as a team really well,” he said. “Unfortunately the pace today was just not enough. Third was the best we could do. I think we’ve done our maximum.”
Hamilton finished fourth after a relatively competitive performance to complete Ferrari’s second-highest scoring weekend of the year after the Monaco Grand Prix to put the team back into second on the title table.
George Russell was similarly uninfluential in the race, his Mercedes unhappy in the 86 degrees F conditions as he finished 33s behind Hamilton.
Liam Lawson finished a career-high sixth with an ambitious medium-hard one-stop strategy, beating the warring Alonso and Bortoleto, who finished seventh and eighth respectively.
Bortoleto, who scored his maiden grand prix points, beat Sauber teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who finished ninth for the team’s first double score of the season.
Esteban Ocon scored the final point of the race in 10th ahead of teammate Oliver Bearman, Isack Hadjar, Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll.
Colapinto’s penalty for shoving Piastri was neutralized by Tsunoda’s own 10s penalty for punting the Argentine in an earlier battle, compounding a dreadful afternoon for the second Red Bull Racing driver and his team, which failed to score for the first time since the 2021 British Grand Prix.
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