F1: Max Verstappen Wins Crash-Ridden 2018 F1 Austrian GP As Mercedes Ends With Double DNF

It was a dramatic, crash-filled race at the Red Bull Ring in Austria and Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen took his career's fourth win in the 2018 Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix. The young racer managed to keep it together even as the top contenders retired at different stages of the 71 lap race, including both the Mercedes-AMG drivers Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, as well as Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel made it to the podium in second and third place respectively. The podium finish has pushed Vettel back in the championship lead over Hamilton by a single point.

With a front row start for Mercedes, the race seemed much in their favour as Hamilton seemed confident to consolidate his championship lead further. Hamilton took the lead from Bottas in the opening lap, while the pole-sitter was pushed down to fourth struggling to move past Raikkonen. Meanwhile, Verstappen started fifth on the grid but moved past Bottas into P3, all in the opening lap. Despite the slow start, Bottas was in recovery mode soon enough and moved past Verstappen and Raikkonen into second by the end of Lap 1.

Verstappen was now attacking Raikkonen to take P3 and a slight nudge on the Fin's left-rear wheel pushed him wide, allowing the Red Bull driver to move up to P3. Meanwhile, Hamilton had settled into the lead building a gap a little over 2s amidst all the drama right behind, while teammate Bottas built no pressure on the Briton. By Lap 14, however, Bottas started experiencing loss of hydraulic pressure and slowed down at Turn 4, warranting the need for a virtual safety car (VSC). The incident saw Bottas retire owing to a gearbox issue, while the resulting VSC caused a strategy error on Mercedes' end, ruining the race for Hamilton.

Under the virtual safety car, all frontrunners stopped except for Hamilton due to a miscommunication. While Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles apologised on the radio for the same, the damage was enough to push Hamilton down to fourth as he entered the pits, while handing over the lead Verstappen, followed by Raikkonen in second and Ricciardo in third. The Briton's misery continued further as a fast charging Vettel pushed him wide on Turn 3 to take fourth with 30 laps left.

While Hamilton struggled to remain in the top contention, Ricciardo faced issues with his left-rear tyre that developed a blister. A change in tyres did help matters for the Australian, but he was soon faced with a gearbox problem that ended his run prematurely. With Ricciardo out of the race, Hamilton was back up to fourth, only for his race to end before the chequered flag as well due to a loss of fuel pressure. As Hamilton described it on the radio, the Mercedes crew had just thrown away a win.

With Bottas, Hamilton and Ricciardo out of contention, the top runners now just had to complete the race to bring home the win. With about 18 laps remaining, Verstappen had settled well into the lead and went on to win the race by a gap of 1.504s over Raikkonen, while Vettel finished third, 3.181s behind the race leader.

Coming in fourth was Romain Grosjean of Haas in his career-best finish, followed by teammate Kevin Magnussen in fifth. Force India's Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez were promoted to sixth and seventh respectively amidst the drama, having started 11th and 15th respectively. Starting from the pitlane, McLaren's Fernando Alonso ran as far as 19th in the early laps, only to finish eighth with the VSC and a late charge helping the cause. The last two points were taken by Sauber's Charles Leclerc asnd Marcus Ericsson with Leclerc taking ninth in a lap fight with his teammate.

While Verstappen's victory and Mercedes DNFs dominate the 2018 Austrian GP, the race also saw three major retirements including Nico Hulkenberg's dramatic engine failure, while Brendon Hartley stopped due to a mechanical failure forcing him off the track.