Austrian GP Data: How Max Verstappen lost the race and the Lando Norris effect

Max Verstappen had everything under control to take the win at the Austrian Grand Prix race.

The Dutchman was dominating, as he had been all weekend, but a Red Bull slow stop and an unfavourable tyre choice for the final stint of this Grand Prix put Max on the ropes.

How the race unfolded in Austria

Verstappen and Red Bull had everything in their hands to achieve an easy victory at their home GP. In fact, until lap 52 everything seemed to be under control. McLaren were copying the Dutchman’s strategy without trying anything risky and were inferior in pace.

In the first stint, Verstappen was on another level. Right at the start of the race, the Dutchman open, in just four corners, a big enough gap to deny DRS to Lando Norris. From then on, he was able to run steady lap times – always better than the McLaren driver until he opened a delta of +5.819s before the first pitstop.

Verstappen then escaped a 5-second penalty for an unsafe release at his first stop. The investigation was opened on lap 31, where the gap between Max and Lando was +7.1s. The final decision of no further action came on lap 34 when the Red Bull driver had already opened the gap to +7.9s due to the possible penalty.

In that time, Verstappen increased the gap to Norris by eight tenths in just three laps, which then took its toll on his hard tyres. Despite being quicker in the first half of the stint, after pushing to increase the gap due to a possible penalty, Norris was able to be more solid. Overall, though, Verstappen again had a better average pace than Lando by just three thousandths of a second.

McLaren knew they would have an advantage in the final stint against Red Bull, because they did have a new medium tyre to use and they could be more aggressive. What they probably didn’t expect was that Red Bull would opt to use a used medium tyre and put themselves at a direct disadvantage against them.

Everything seemed to indicate that Red Bull was going to go for the conservative strategy -medium, hard, hard- by putting on a new hard tyre for the final laps. But Verstappen complained about the tyre’s poor grip from lap 40 onwards and Red Bull decided to change the initial plan – or that’s what it seemed.

Red Bull fit Verstappen instead on a set of three-lap used medium tyres, thinking that his superiority would be just as clear as in the first stint and with a gap before the final stop of +7.5s over Norris.

A clear advantage that should not have been too dangerous for Max despite the tyre life disadvantage. And maybe it could have been.

It is true that Max’s pace with the hard tyre after 20 laps of use was quite poor, but it is also clear that the Dutchman pushed too hard at the beginning of the stint with this tyre and could have managed the last set better to reach the end of the race in an advantageous position, against a McLaren driver in Norris who had to push hard to close the gap and overtake the RB20 on track. Without a doubt, it was a difficult call for the Red Bull pit wall.

What was totally key and unforgivable was Red Bull’s slow pit stop. With a stop of 6.5s compared to McLaren’s 2.9s. This stop condemned Verstappen who went out on track behind Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda. And this is precisely what Red Bull wanted to avoid.

They wanted Lando to have traffic while Max could have been able to pull away a bit in clean air in the first laps and compensate for that tyre disadvantage with Norris.

But it didn’t work out that way. And just on the out-lap, on lap 52 at the exit of Turn 4, Verstappen made the mistake that practically confirmed his defeat. A lock-up that made him lose more than one second over Norris in just three corners and placed the McLaren driver on the lookout for the much-desired DRS window. From +2.8 seconds gap to +1.9s.

Just a few corners later, Norris took advantage of the traffic to gain a stratospheric top speed advantage over Verstappen and cut almost half a second off him in just the first sector of lap 53. In total on lap 53, he took away seventh tenths of a second, which allowed him to open the DRS on the next lap and attack the Red Bull driver mercilessly.

From this point on, Verstappen could only survive. Norris had a big advantage as he was inside the DRS window, with fresher tyres and no lock-up. The McLaren driver stewed over the overtake for several laps and after some tug-of-war came the drama and a seemingly inevitable contact.

Max Verstappen made contact with Norris on the outside of Turn 3 in what didn’t look like an overtaking move, but more an attempt to gain traction for the next straight and try to make the move down to Turn 4. The Dutchman was too aggressive and received a well-deserved 10-second penalty, His rival meanwhile, had to retire with zero points in his pocket.

It is true that the only tool left for Verstappen to win today after that dramatic pit-stop and the lock-up during his out-lap, was to be more aggressive than Norris.

And he was, but over the limit. After the whole weekend being so dominant, it was impossible for him to imagine not winning in front of the orange grandstands.

Norris didn’t look belligerent in this move and was probably waiting for a better place to throw his car on the inside instead. In fact, in previous laps he did go to the inside of Turn 3 and went long, where it did look like contact could happen due to too much more aggressiveness from the McLaren driver. But in the end, it was Max who caused the final drama.

In the end, after 51 laps of clear dominance by Max Verstappen and 12 laps of battle between the Red Bull driver and Lando Norris, it was George Russell, who was probably totally happy with P3, who was pleasantly surprised to be crowned winner at the Red Bull Ring.