Lando Norris survived an early battle with teammate Piastri in order to win the Austrian Grand Prix and close the gap in the world championship.
The initial start of the race was delayed as Carlos Sainz’s car was initially unable to get off his grid spot for the formation lap. He would eventually get going right before Norris came round the final corner, and would pull into the pits.
However, when he stopped at the end of the pitlane, his car would then catch fire from overheating, and Sainz would be unable to start the race.
When the lights finally went out for the race, Piastri made a good move around the outside of Leclerc to climb into 2nd, while Russell was able to get past Hamilton for fourth.
Heading into turn 3, Norris was able to defend against Piastri for the lead, while further behind Antonelli locked up and collided straight into Verstappen, taking both drivers out of the race.
Before the safety car was called, Hamilton was able to get back ahead of Russell.
Norris had a good restart once the race got back under way, building a little bit of a gap to Piastri.
Russell has made an attempt to regain fourth, but Hamilton was able to fend it off early on, even though Russell was unhappy with his former teammate’s defence.
Piastri’s race pace was strong early on, and had a half hearted attempt on the inside of Norris at turn 4 on lap 6. Both drivers were clearly much faster than anyone else, so this would be the fight for the win.
Gasly had started on soft tyres, which quickly began to degrade, becoming something of a cork on a bottle. Albon would take 6th on lap 9, while Bortoleto would overtake for 7th on lap 12.
Lap 11 saw a close fight between Norris and Piastri, which saw the latter briefly taken the lead at turn 3, before Norris would perform a switchback to take the lead back down into turn 4.
Williams’ day went from bad to worse as Albon, who was in a strong position, was forced to retire at the end of lap 16, making it three retirements in a row for the Thai driver.
Piastri wanted to try and get past on lap 20, as the pit stops were coming up, and we would have wanted the priority in the team. He would make a late lunge on the inside, but would lock up into the corner.
Norris would come in at the end of that lap, though it would be a stop that was slower than what would be ideal. However, Piastri would be told to stay out in spite of his flat spotted tyre, negating the risk of him overcutting Norris.
Piastri would come in at the end of lap 24, and would himself have a slow pit stop, coming out just over five seconds behind his teammate.
Yuki Tsunoda collided with Franco Colapinto on lap 31, spinning round the Argentinian. Tsunoda would need a front wing replacement, making Red Bull’s race even worse.
Little of much note occurred in the middle portion of the race, though Piastri was able to start catching Norris back up a little after lap 40, with lapped traffic playing a bit of an effect to bring Piastri within 4 seconds of his teammate.
A couple of driver errors took place around lap 48, with Piastri having to take the escape road at turn 1 after a bit of oversteer, while Hamilton got some oversteer at turn 3, and went off track himself.
McLaren brought Norris in for his second stop on lap 53, while Piastri would pit just one lap later. Piastri would come out behind the lapped traffic of Tsunoda and Colapinto, getting severely compromised by the two, including being squeezed off track by Colapinto.
By lap 60, Piastri managed to close the gap to Norris to 2.5 seconds, giving him 10 laps to try and get close and then pass his teammate for the win.
Piastri would manage to get within two seconds of his teammate, but would struggle to get much closer, leaving Norris a clear shot of winning the Austrian Grand Prix.
Norris’ win means that he has closed the gap in the driver’s championship to 15 points.
The next race is the British Grand Prix, which takes place on Sunday, July 6.
