F1 | Austria Grand Prix Race Recap

Leclerc takes first win in three months in Austrian Grand Prix.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc overcame a second place losing to Red Bull driver Max Verstappen in Saturday’s F1 Sprint at the Red Bull Ring. But in the surprise of the weekend, LeClerc turned the tables in the Austrian Grand Prix, showing supreme speed, and surviving a technical scare on his Ferrari F1-75, to bring home his first victory since the Australian Grand Prix in April.

Leclerc started P2 to Verstappen, the grid set by Saturday’s Sprint result, but from the start appeared to have demonstrably superior speed to his Dutch rival. That meant he was able to pass the Red Bull driver not once, not twice, but three times on track. The speed put Ferrari in a position to go bold with his strategy as Leclerc brought home the fifth win of his career, and his first since Melbourne, following a series of retirements and strategy missteps for LeClerc and the Ferrari team.

“I definitely needed that one!” said Leclerc post race. “I mean, the last five races have been incredibly difficult for myself but also for the team obviously, and to finally show that we’ve got the pace in the car and that we can do it is incredible, so we need to push until the end [of the year]. It was a really good race. The pace was there, at the beginning and we had some good fights with Max.”

The race played out even better for Leclerc in that Red Bull’s Sergio Perez retired from the race after contact with George Russell’s Mercedes on Lap 1, leaving Leclerc’s a 32-point haul from the weekend, compared to Perez’s four, moves him back to P2 in the standings, 38 points behind Verstappen.

Photo | Scuderia Ferrari

It wasn’t all smooth sailing however, as just moments after team mate Carlos Sainz had retired from the race’s latter stages with flames coming out around the sidepods of his Ferrari, Leclerc reported a throttle issue on his own F1-75 – which forced him to manage the problem before sweeping across the line for his third win of the year.

“The end was incredibly difficult,” said Leclerc. “I had this problem with the throttle and it would get stuck at 20% or 30% throttle in the low-speed, so it was very tricky but we managed to make it stick until the end and I’m so, so happy."

A second place for Verstappen in the Sunday race comes as little consolation as Verstappen has lost two in a row but still maintains the top spot in the race for the season championship.

“We were just a bit too slow today, we were doing the best we could with the strategy but the Ferraris were extremely fast," said Verstappen post race. “Of course, we need to understand why we had so much degradation with the tires, I’m not sure exactly what happened, no matter which compound we used none of them seemed to work well. Although we didn’t win today, we still walked away with a lot of points. In difficult moments you need to score points and we did that today."

SPIELBERG, AUSTRIA - JULY 10: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB18 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Austria at Red Bull Ring on July 10, 2022 in Spielberg, Austria. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images) // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool // SI202207100338 // Usage for editorial use only //