2021 Austrian Grand Prix

## Lap Leader

The **2021 Austrian Grand Prix** was a Formula 1.5 motor race held on 4 July 2021 at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. The race was the ninth round of the 2021 Formula 1.5 World Championship, and the 35th running of the Austrian Grand Prix (the 34th as part of the World Championship since 1950) as well as the second of two consecutive races to be held at the Red Bull Ring with the Styrian Grand Prix held the week before at the same venue.

## Background

### Entry List

The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list with no additional stand-in drivers for the race. Callum Ilott drove for Alfa Romeo Racing in place of Antonio Giovinazzi in the first free practice session, as well as Roy Nissany, who drove for Williams in place of George Russell, and Guanyu Zhou, who drove for Alpine in place of Fernando Alonso, making his Formula 1.5 practice debut.

### Tyres

Tyre supplier Pirelli brought the C3, C4, and C5 tyre compounds (designated hard, medium, and soft, respectively) for teams to use at the event. Initially, Pirelli selected C2, C3, and C4 tyre compounds before changing the tyre choices in accordance with the double event at the same venue, preceded the week before by the Styrian Grand Prix.

## Practice

The first practice session was topped by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by less than tenth over teammate Carlos Sainz. Yuki Tsunoda for AlphaTauri was third and was also under a tenth slower than Leclerc. Zhou made his debut in the sport, impressing a lot of people being just a few tenths slower than Ocon and finishing 10th. Latifi also finished behind Williams' reserve driver Roy Nissany.

In FP2 it was Lance Stroll who was fastest for Aston Martin ahead of Sebastian Vettel followed by Tsunoda in third place again. In the third and final practice session AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly topped the session over the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari.

## Qualifying

Lando Norris set the fastest time in Qualifying to take his second consecutive pole position of the year ahead of Gasly in second and Tsunoda in third.

## Race

The race started at 15:00 local time. Esteban Ocon retired on the first lap after colliding with the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and breaking his front suspension. The safety car was deployed and the race was continued on lap 4. At the restart, Lando Norris was fighting F1 driver Sergio Perez, and pushed him off track, earning him a 5 second penalty. On the final lap Kimi Räikkönen collided with the Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel, meaning Vettel was unable to finish the race. Norris won the race ahead of Sainz and Ricciardo.

After the race, George Russell who finished a personal best 7th, was invetigated by the FIA for moving under breaking whilst fighting Kimi Raikkonen, however no penalty was given as he was found not to have moved alot. Kimi Raikkonen also was investigated for the last lap collision with ex- F1 team mate Sebastian Vettel, in which he was given a drive-through penalty converted to a 20-second time penalty. The incident itself brough out double wave yellow flags which means drivers must slow down and be prepared to stop. After the race, Sainz, Ricciardo, Leclerc, Gasly, Giovinazzi, Latifi and Mazepin were all investigated for failing to respect those double wave yellows. All of them were cleared of any wrong doing except Latifi and Mazepin who both got 10-second stop-and-go time penalties which were converted to 30-second time penalties.

## Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

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Constructors' Championship standings

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## External Links

1. ↑  Sebastian Vettel received a three-place grid penalty for impeding Fernando Alonso during qualifying.
2. ↑ Includes one point for fastest lap
3. ↑  Yuki Tsunoda received a five-second time penalty for crossing the line at the pit entry.
4. ↑  Lance Stroll received a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
5. ↑  Kimi Räikkönen finished 12th on track, but received a post-race drive-through penalty converted to a 20-second time penalty for causing a collision with Sebastian Vettel. He was classified 11th due to Nicholas Latifi's penalty.
6. ↑  Nicholas Latifi finished 11th on track, but received a post-race 10-second stop-and-go time penalty converted to a 30-second time penalty for not respecting double yellow flags.
7. ↑  Sebastian Vettel was classified as he completed more than 90% of the race distance.
8. ↑  Nikita Mazepin received a post-race 10-second stop-and-go time penalty converted to a 30-second time penalty for not respecting double yellow flags. This made no difference as he finished last.