2020 Austrian Grand Prix: Bottas Wins the Season Opener at Spielberg

The 2020 Austrian Grand Prix opened the Formula One season on 5 July at the Red Bull Ring, held behind closed doors. Valtteri Bottas won from pole, while Lando Norris claimed his first Formula One podium in third. It was the first of two Grands Prix at the same venue in consecutive weeks.

Who won the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix?

Valtteri Bottas took the eighth win of his Formula One career, leading every lap for Mercedes. Charles Leclerc moved up to second after Lewis Hamilton's five-second penalty, while Lando Norris took third for McLaren. It was Bottas's second Austrian win, after 2017.

Bottas had controlled the race from the front, and the afternoon was shaped more by what happened behind him. Hamilton finished second on track but was classified fourth, and the penalty turned the podium into a Ferrari and McLaren result.

Norris's rise was the story of the closing stages. He set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap, cutting the gap to Hamilton to 4.8 seconds, which earned him a point. His podium was the first of his Formula One career, and it came at the first race of a season shaped by the pandemic.

A closed-door opener where a Hamilton penalty and Norris's first podium reshaped the afternoon.

How did qualifying set up the race?

Bottas took pole ahead of Hamilton, despite going onto the grass on his last Q3 attempt. Verstappen qualified third, half a second behind the Mercedes pair, and Norris took fourth, a career best. Hamilton was later handed a three-place grid penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags.

Qualifying ran in three parts. Q1 lasted 18 minutes and removed the five slowest cars, while the 107 per cent rule applied to every driver who wanted to qualify for the race. Q2 ran for 15 minutes before five more cars were eliminated, and Q3 ran for 12 minutes to settle the top ten. The fastest driver in Q3 took pole.

Alexander Albon took fifth for Red Bull, and Sergio Perez was sixth for Racing Point. Charles Leclerc was seventh for Ferrari, nearly a second off pole, while his teammate Sebastian Vettel finished 11th and failed to reach the final part. Carlos Sainz Jr. was eighth for McLaren, with Lance Stroll ninth and Daniel Ricciardo tenth for Renault.

Both Alfa Romeo drivers were eliminated in Q1, with Antonio Giovinazzi 18th and Kimi Raikkonen 19th, and Nicholas Latifi qualified last for Williams. Albon and Perez then set identical Q3 times, and Albon was classified ahead because he had set his lap first.

Hamilton was summoned to the stewards after qualifying for failing to slow for yellow flags when Bottas went off on his final Q3 run. He was cleared at the time, because conflicting signals had been shown to him. Red Bull challenged that decision before the race, and the stewards reopened the case after new footage from a 360-degree onboard camera, which led to the grid penalty.

How did practice look in Spielberg?

Three practice sessions were held, two on Friday and one on Saturday. Hamilton set the fastest time in the first session at 1:04.816 on soft tyres, over three-tenths quicker than Bottas. He also topped the second session, while the third was much warmer than the previous sessions.

The first session started with 30 minutes of showers, so a few laps were set on intermediate tyres before the drivers moved onto dry tyres. In the second session Hamilton posted 1:04.304 and Bottas was less than two-tenths behind, and the track temperature in the third session reached 49 degrees Celsius. The day before had peaked at 36 degrees.

Saturday brought the first crash of the season, when Latifi hit the barriers at turn one after 45 minutes. Hamilton set 1:04.130 in that session, less than two-tenths ahead of Bottas, which was a strong sign for the weekend ahead.

Pirelli brought the C2, C3 and C4 compounds, the second, third and fourth hardest of the five it produces. Every driver had the same allocation of two sets of hards, three of mediums and eight of softs, which kept costs under control on a congested calendar.

Why was the 2020 calendar so unusual?

The calendar was rebuilt after COVID-19 forced cancellations. The planned Australian opener was called off two days before it was due to run, which pushed the start of the season back to 5 July. The Red Bull Ring took the opening round, and the race weekend was held behind closed doors.

Organisers signed a contract for a second round at the circuit on 12 July, the Styrian Grand Prix. It was the first time the same venue and layout had hosted back-to-back World Championship races, and the first time a country had hosted consecutive races since 1995, when Japan held the Pacific and Japanese Grands Prix.

Twenty drivers representing ten teams entered the race. Scuderia AlphaTauri made its debut as a constructor, having previously competed as Scuderia Toro Rosso from 2006 to 2019. The team's first race under the new name ended with Gasly in seventh place.

Who joined the grid for 2020?

Esteban Ocon returned to Formula One with Renault, replacing Nico Hulkenberg, after being out of the sport since the end of 2018. Nicholas Latifi made his competitive debut with Williams, taking the seat left by Robert Kubica, who had raced only one season after returning from a serious rally crash in 2011.

Mercedes changed its livery to black instead of its traditional silver, a gesture that backed the Black Lives Matter movement and pledged to promote diversity and tackle racism. Formula One launched a We Race as One initiative focused on COVID-19 and global inequality, and rainbows were displayed across the circuit and team liveries.

McLaren's updated livery carried a rainbow on the halo, rainbow colours on the sidepods and End Racism messaging. The gestures were part of a wider attempt by the sport to show solidarity during a difficult year for communities around the world.

What happened in the opening laps?

The first lap was clean, with Vettel claiming tenth from Ricciardo as the only change inside the top ten. Albon passed Norris on lap three, and Hamilton overtook Albon soon afterwards to move onto the podium. Verstappen's electrical problem on lap 11 forced him into the pits, and he retired after the team could not correct the fault.

Stroll lost power on lap 17 and retired on lap 21, and Ricciardo was forced into the pits with suspected overheating. Grosjean spun at turn three on lap 21 and dropped to the back, but he was able to continue and was the first driver to change tyres.

Magnussen's brake failure at turn two on lap 25 brought out the first safety car of the race, and most of the cars still running then pitted for their first tyre change. The order of the top ten after that round was Bottas, Hamilton, Albon, Norris, Perez, Leclerc, Sainz, Vettel, Gasly and Kvyat.

How did the middle of the race unfold?

Vettel attempted an inside move on Sainz at turn two after the restart. The cars made contact and Vettel was spun, dropping him to 15th place. Mercedes were warned by their engineers to avoid the kerbs, because the vibrations were feared to damage the gearboxes.

Grosjean suffered a brake failure on lap 50 and retired in the pits. Russell lost fuel pressure at the same time and pulled onto the grass, which brought out the second safety car. Eight of the remaining drivers then pitted for a second tyre change, including Albon, who moved to soft tyres, while the leading Mercedes cars stayed out on hards.

Racing resumed on lap 55, but Raikkonen's right-front wheel came off almost at once because it had been cross-threaded during his pit stop. That brought out a third safety car, and racing resumed on lap 61. Albon's attempt on Hamilton at turn three ended with a spin into the gravel, and he rejoined in 13th, the last of the cars still running.

Leclerc then began to move forward, passing Norris on lap 64 and Perez on the next lap to take third. Hamilton was given a five-second penalty for causing the earlier collision with Albon, and Perez received the same penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

How was the result decided at the finish?

Hamilton and Perez both picked up five-second penalties in the closing laps. Leclerc moved past Norris and Perez for third, and Albon retired on lap 68 with an electrical failure at turn six. Kvyat suffered a rear puncture on the penultimate lap, making him the ninth retirement of the race.

Bottas crossed the line having led every lap of the race. Norris pushed hard on the final lap and set the fastest lap, reducing his gap to Hamilton to 4.8 seconds. That was enough to leave Hamilton's five-second penalty as the decisive factor, dropping him to fourth and promoting Leclerc to second and Norris to third.

Sainz finished fifth and Perez sixth, unaffected by his own penalty. Gasly took seventh for AlphaTauri, and Ocon finished eighth on his return to the sport. Giovinazzi and Vettel rounded out the points, while Latifi was the only driver to finish outside them, in 11th place.

Results at a glance