Verstappen's biggest statement yet amid F1 penalty deluge: 2023 Austrian GP report

That brought out the virtual safety car and the lap is so short that it was second time around that the Ferrari pair came into the pits. It saved them some time as Verstappen stayed out in the lead, but the double-stack was far from perfect as each stop took over four seconds and Sainz dropped behind both Lewis Hamilton — who gained fourth from Norris off the line — and the McLaren, after they had come in a lap earlier.

As early as it was in the race, Norris had already been complaining about Hamilton regularly exceeding track limits at Turn 10, and as the warnings piled up the Mercedes driver said he couldn’t get the car to turn.

“We knew we had a really bad rear end here, so we took out a lot of front wing so that we could go long,” Hamilton said. “Massively underdid it, and I was almost full lock round the last two corners – Turn 10 was just sliding and I couldn’t do anything about it.

“Through the stops we then added a lot of wing and the car started to slowly come back to at least getting round and staying on the track.”

Those changes came too late, as Hamilton picked up a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits too many times as early as lap 16, meaning he went off on average every four laps. But he wouldn’t be the last driver to suffer that fate.

Just as Hamilton got that penalty, so Sainz cleared Norris after a tough fight through Turn 4, and two laps later a dive up the inside of the Mercedes into Turn 3 saw the pair run side-by-side to Turn 4 where Sainz came out ahead again.

The Spaniard then had to clear Sergio Perez who had followed Verstappen in not stopping under the VSC and climbed from 15th to third, duly doing so but now being well adrift of Leclerc ahead.

That’s because Leclerc had been using fresh rubber to close in on Verstappen, so when the defending champion finally made his first stop on lap 24 it was Leclerc who took over and ended a run of 248 consecutive laps that Verstappen had led: the third-highest tally of all time.

Verstappen made short work of Sainz and then regained the lead at the halfway stage, with Leclerc’s defence far more tame than seen at this venue in the past.

“At that point, I knew it was a matter of time,” Leclerc said. “Max had much fresher tyres. They are also quicker whenever we have the same tyres, so it’s not like I tried to push like crazy. I knew it was crucial to lose as little time as possible in this battle, and this is why I haven’t been as aggressive as I’ve been in other times when we were fighting for real positions whereas this one was a bit difficult.

“If he wouldn’t have overtaken me into Turn 4, it was the lap after, and I would have lost more time for my race, so it wouldn’t have benefitted me in any way.”

At that stage, the fight for the win was over as both had one more stop to make and Verstappen was easing away, but behind was a far closer battle that was muddied by track limit penalties building up. Sainz earned himself five seconds and was joined by the likes of Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant as the Williams pair threatened the top ten.

The Sainz penalty dangled a carrot for Norris, who had overtaken a struggling Hamilton and was a little over five seconds behind the Ferrari in the fight for a final podium spot. After Sainz’s second stop – including his penalty – Norris was ahead, but only for a few corners before the Ferrari regained the position.

It proved to be for fourth place, though, as Perez was carving his way through the field after a tough qualifying. It took him six laps after his final pit stop to pass Norris into Turn 4, and he then engaged in a robust fight with Sainz that had the Ferrari driver complaining in an odd fashion.

“The stewards should have a look at that, he was intimidating me a lot,” Sainz said on team radio.

In reality it was hard racing from both and Perez made the move stick with 10 laps to go, but ran out of time to close down Leclerc ahead.

Instead, it got close between the top two as Verstappen demanded a late pitstop for soft tyres, giving up a 24-second lead to try and take the fastest lap from his team-mate. He started the final lap two seconds clear of Leclerc, but ended it over five ahead and with the extra point for good measure.

“To me, it’s not [a risk], but to the team, I think they were a little bit more nervous,” Verstappen said. “I saw the gap, and I was like ‘we have to pit’. I want to go for the fastest lap when you have the opportunity, and that’s what we did at the end … From the outside, maybe it looks like a big risk. But in the car for me, it didn’t feel like a risk at all.”

Clean sweep completed, Verstappen was made to wait for the result to become official as the FIA acknowledged a number of track limit infringements had been missed and needed reviewing that would change the race classification. It was backed up by a protest from Aston Martin, who sensed an opportunity for Fernando Alonso’s quiet race to yield more than sixth place as he was within ten seconds of Sainz in fourth.

Aston’s hunch was right as, after taking into account more than 1200 reported track limit violations, the stewards issued a report with a string of new penalties and a barbed statement that they “very strongly recommend that a solution be found to the track limits situation at this circuit.”

Sainz was demoted to sixth, after an extra 10sec penalty, moving Norris and Alonso up a place, while 10sec penalties for Hamilton and Gasly dropped them a place each.

Ocon accrued an extra 30sec for leaving the track at least 18 times and fell from 11th to 14th, but Albon and Sargeant retained their finishing positions of 11th and 13th despite 10sec penalties. De Vries lost two places after having 15sec added to his time, and Tsunoda dropped a place to be classified last of the finishers thanks to a 5sec penalty.

It left George Russell ahead of his team-mate in seventh place, with Lance Stroll and Gasly picking up the final points places at the end of a day that Verstappen delivered the sublime and track limit penalties the ridiculous.

2023 Austrian Grand Prix race results

*Includes point for fastest lap
**Post-race penalty for exceeding track limits
5sec: Tsunoda
10sec: Sainz, Hamilton, Gasly, Albon, Sargeant
15sec: De Vries
30sec: Ocon