Austrian GP
The Monegasque took the victory in Spielberg ahead of Verstappen, Sainz left with his Ferrari on fire and the Asturian came back to tenth despite the mistakes of his team
Charles Leclerc has once again shown that he is a driver to be taken into account if he has things going for him. On a Sunday in which it seemed that Max Verstappen was going to be the real king, it was he who knew how to take advantage of the strokes of the script that the Austrian GP had to add his third victory of the year, the first of his sports career that has not been since the pole.
Eight races later, Leclerc won a race again. It was not easy, because he even had to fight against his own mechanics, which in the end made him fear the worst, but along the way he left three great overtaking on the track to the world champion himself and, for the moment, outstanding leader of the general classification. The Monegasque showed time and time again that he wanted a victory that from the beginning became a matter of two.
And it is that Carlos Sainz did not have his day, far from it. From the start in which he was stuck, it was clear that it was going to be very difficult for him to repeat victory as in Silverstone. He found himself defending himself against a very aggressive George Russell who ended up being sanctioned not for kicking the man from Madrid, but for doing it with a Sergio PĂ©rez who ended up in the gravel.
Despite this, it seemed that Sainz could accompany his partner on the podium. Verstappen’s problems with front-end grip severely hampered his chances of fending off attacks from Leclerc, who still had to struggle in the closing laps of the race because his accelerator pedal wasn’t working properly. He can still be thankful that he finished the race, something that Sainz himself could not do.
The man from Madrid was fighting for second place when the engine of his Ferrari blew up, almost literally. An eloquent white smoke began to come out of the rear of his F1-75, which Sainz managed to carry to the escape area as best he could. While the car was burning and the stewards were arriving, Sainz had to jump out of the burning car to avoid being burned physically, because he was mentally, and a lot. The man from Madrid arrived with many options to achieve a great result and ended up outside his car, totally devastated.
save the furniture
Fernando Alonso said after the electrical problem that prevented him from competing in the sprint race that Alpine’s continuous reliability problems and bad luck had cost him between 50 and 60 points. After what happened this Sunday you can add a few more to those accounts.
Alonso finished tenth, which is already a great result considering that he started nineteenth. With a completely new power unit, since they took advantage of the penalty to release a fresh one and try to come back. The Asturian took that goal to heart, and had a great race, including a fight with a dangerous Yuki Tsunoda that strangled him until he almost kicked him off the track.
This was not the greatest difficulty that Alonso suffered. After being one of the members of a spectacular five-a-side fight that reaffirmed that the new Formula 1 regulations favor much more even fights, he ended up being forced to lose another three or four positions that they sent him due to a failure with a wheel in a pit stop.
Alonso was one of the drivers who took advantage of the virtual safety car that came out after Sainz retired to enter the pits and fit new tires. As soon as he re-entered the track he realized that something was wrong: he noticed too many vibrations, a clear sign that one of the wheels was mounted incorrectly. Without radioing, as that would mean he would have had to stop, he went back to the pits for an extra tire change. This time the four nuts were well tightened and he was able to complete the race, although not in fifth or sixth place (his teammate Ocon was fifth) more than possible, but in tenth.
Alonso was investigated after the race for this situation and, after several hours, the stewards could not confirm that this problem was due to the nut being tightened incorrectly, since when the car came out of the pits there was nothing unusual. It was in turn three when a non-specific problem caused it to come loose. What Alpine and Alonso lacked: now they will have to investigate how it is possible that if a nut is well tightened it can loosen in the middle of a lap.
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