Andrea Stella: "A perfect conclusion to a very competitive weekend, and a nice way to bounce back after a tough week in Canada. It's been made possible by great work from the trackside team, and also a wonderful effort from everyone at the factory to deliver an upgrade that has made the MCL39 a faster car.
"The racing was great today between Lando and Oscar: fair, robust in a couple of moments, but with mutual respect. This is exactly what we want to see between our drivers. Lando drove a perfect weekend with a dominant Pole position, which he managed to convert into his third victory of the season. Oscar made a position at the start, overtaking Charles Leclerc, and then stayed right on Lando's gearbox for the first stint and very close until the end of the race.
"We're going to enjoy the moment - but not for very long as our focus must shift to the British Grand Prix. We want another strong performance at our home race, for our technical partners, our commercial partners and most of all, our many fans at Silverstone who have been with us all the way on this remarkable journey."
Christian Horner: "It was a horrible race for us and desperately unlucky for Max to be taken out at turn 3 when he had done nothing wrong, he had a good start and made good progress. It's a shame, I don't think we would have been racing the McLarens today but we would have been racing the Ferraris pretty hard. With Yuki it was again not a great race, he had damage to the front wing, a penalty and so on, unfortunately for us it was a weekend to forget."
Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished 3rd and 4th respectively in today's Austrian Grand Prix. The start of the race was aborted and delayed by 15', after Carlos Sainz was unable to leave the grid on the formation lap. The Safety Car was deployed on the opening lap following a collision between Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen.
Charles and Lewis started on Medium tyres and went for a two-stop strategy, switching first to Hard and then back to Medium for the final stint. Charles lost second place to Oscar Piastri after the start. Both Scuderia Ferrari HP drivers had a relatively straightforward race, never really able to challenge the car ahead, nor to be threatened by those behind.
Very hot temperatures, the hottest of this weekend, played a significant role today in terms of tyre management. The team picked up 27 points and is now back in 2nd place in the Constructors' championship. Leclerc's 47th podium finish, his fourth of the season, was number 833 for the Scuderia.
Team Principal Fred Vasseur was not on the pitwall today, because he had to return home for personal reasons. Deputy Team Principal, Jerome d'Ambrosio stood in for him.
Jerome D'Ambrosio - Deputy Team Principal: We can be happy with this result. For a while now, Fred's been saying we just need to put everything together and have a clean weekend and that's what we did. Today, in a clean race, both our drivers ran a very similar pace. Obviously, the gap to McLaren is still big, especially during the race, but we'll keep on pushing to close it down. The gaps between the teams change from race to race, so you just have to focus on yourself and do the best you can. Today, we moved back up to second in the Constructors' even if by an extremely small margin and everyone in the team is keen to keep pushing to improve and do even better.
As for stepping into Fred's shoes, the reality is that in this team we have a lot of good people who know what they're doing and so it didn't really change anything in the process. The team operated well and the race was pretty straightforward from our perspective.
A disappointing Austrian Grand Prix saw George Russell come home in P5 with Kimi Antonelli an opening lap retirement. The hottest day of the weekend greeted all the teams with a track temperature above 50°C throughout.
George and Kimi started P5 and P9 respectively, both on the Medium compound, but Kimi's race wouldn't get past turn three. The Italian locked his rear tyres in order to avoid cars ahead and was unable to avoid hitting the Red Bull Racing car of Max Verstappen; both drivers retired on the spot.
After a Safety Car restart, George battled the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton for P4 but was unable to make the pass stick. After that, it was a lonely race for the Brit with a traditional Medium-Medium-Hard two-stop seeing him maximise the pace of the car to take P5. After the race, Kimi was handed a three-place grid drop for his role in the opening lap incident. He will serve that at next weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: Today was not how we wanted things to go. The mistake made by Kimi was unfortunate, but this is what racing is. We now need to analyse what happened to understand better why the tyres locked the way they did. It was a shame for Kimi, us as a team, and also for Max (Verstappen) too, but this is just part of racing sometimes.
George meanwhile had a lonely race. He ultimately maximised the car we had today, but he was not threatened by those behind but neither had the pace to challenge the Ferraris or McLarens ahead. The limiting factors for us are a more abrasive asphalt, longer corners and high temperatures. That is what we faced today but the gap we saw today was too big to reduce it down to those three elements alone. We will look at all the data and find solutions. Fortunately, we get back racing straight away next weekend. We are more confident heading there as the lower temperatures should help us perform better and we have been competitive at Silverstone in recent years.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: It is a shame that Kimi's race got cut short at Turn Three. He locked the rear axle going into the corner, tried to avoid the cars ahead but unfortunately locked the front brakes too and ran into Max (Verstappen). This unfortunately marked the end of his race in Austria.
On the other side of the garage, George struggled a lot with his tyre degradation. The conditions were much warmer than what we had in Free Practice and managing his tyres carefully was the only choice he was left with. The high temperatures here just showed where our weakness is again, and we will work really hard to solve this for the upcoming races.
After struggling this much in hot races, we now have a better understanding of where we stand and what needs to be done to perform better. The next few days will see intense work from the team and hopefully we will be able to fight for a podium in Silverstone.
Mike Krack, Chief Trackside Officer: "A well-planned and executed one-stop strategy helped us secure seventh place this afternoon. Fernando managed the tyre plan perfectly and made the most of a good track position just behind Lawson. It was not an easy strategy to convert, but credit to Fernando and the team for making it work. Lance pushed hard and was involved in a few battles throughout the field, but he suffered with high tyre degradation and points were out of reach for him today. Our attention now turns to the British Grand Prix in just a few days' time. We will look to score more points in our home race."
Flavio Briatore: "Ultimately, we have lost ground to our direct rivals in the Championship after another race without scoring points and, frankly, this level of performance is increasingly concerning. While yesterday the car was quick and should have been well inside Q3 with two cars, Sundays are a very different story for us and it is important we understand why this is, especially if we want to turn this season around from this difficult position."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished the Austrian Grand Prix with Esteban Ocon 10th and Oliver Bearman 11th - the event held Sunday at the Red Bull Ring.
Ocon started the race - which was reduced to 70 laps due to an aborted start - from 17th place on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires, and gained three spots across a chaotic opening lap. Ocon cycled his way through the midfield pack before pitting on lap 19 for White hard rubber, overhauling Alpine's Pierre Gasly, prior to making his second pit stop on lap 51, switching to another set of the hard compound. Ocon passed Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar in the closing stint to move into the top 10, adding another point to his and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team's tally.
Bearman took the start from 15th position on Red soft tires and also picked up three positions through the first lap to run 12th. Bearman slotted by on Franco Colapinto before pitting on lap 11 for hard tires, and made his second stop on lap 39 for a set of Yellow mediums. Bearman followed Ocon home to classify in 11th position.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team holds seventh position in the Constructors' Championship, on 29 points.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "To get to P10 from P17 is positive - normally a very good result. What's not as good is with Esteban I think we could've done even better. Esteban's driving was really good, his first and second stints were so strong, I feel we may have pitted just a bit early on the first stop. That eliminated the chance to do a one-stop race with him which I think we could've done with his tire management and pace. On Ollie's side his first stint on softs was good, and the pit stop was good, but it was the second stint on hard tires where he just had no pace and fell backward. We don't understand that yet, so we need to look into it. It's good we scored a point but our competitors scored more so we have some catching up to do in Silverstone. We have a new package coming for the next race, so we need to get the maximum out of it - a tenth makes a big difference - so we need to be on it."
James Vowles, Team Principal: A very disappointing day. We had the pace today to comfortably finish sixth, and yet we walk away with a double DNF. We had two different issues that need to be understood to make sure we rectify them going forward. We're on a good journey towards building a fast car but we're not complete yet in terms of operation and reliability. We 13 races in front of us this season and they're key races to build this muscle and this capability to make sure that, as we move up the grid and we get faster and faster, we're able to fight at the front with the very best.
After a gap of 25 years, McLaren has finished first and second in the Austrian Grand Prix. Back in 2000, the one-two came courtesy of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard, while today, Lando Norris was victorious in Spielberg, taking his seventh career win and his third of this season. Team-mate Oscar Piastri crossed the finish line right on the Englishman's tail. Rounding off the podium was Charles Leclerc for Ferrari.
This is McLaren's 197th win, the eighth this season and the seventh at this race. Spielberg is proving to be the track that suits Norris best in F1: one win, one pole position, three podium finishes and 108 points scored from nine starts.
Soft and Medium were both seen on the starting grid. Five drivers (Gasly, Colapinto, Bearman, Hadjar and Hulkenberg) drove the first stint on the C5, while the other 15 went with the C4.
As the race evolved, naturally the Hard also came into play, with Ocon using both his sets of C3, having started on the Medium. His Haas team-mate, Oliver Bearman, the only other driver with two sets of Hards available, actually crossed the finish line on a set of Mediums. The English Haas driver, along with France's Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bulls and Aston Martin's Canadian driver Lance Stroll, were the three drivers who used all three compounds. Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg was the only driver never to have used the hardest compound available in Spielberg.
The race distance was reduced by one lap, after the start was aborted because Carlos Sainz in the Williams was left immobile on the grid on the formation lap. The longest stint overall was down to Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) who drove 41 laps on the Hard. As for the Medium, Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) takes the prize with 33 laps. The Spaniard and New Zealander Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) planned to make just one pit stop and they both finished in the point.
Mario Isola: "The first race weekend in the height of summer saw our tyres behave as expected, both yesterday in qualifying and today in the race. Over 70 laps run in very high temperatures - the track varied between 52 and 55 °C - degradation across the three compounds was higher than during Friday free practice, when temperatures were between 15 and 20 °C lower, however not by a significant amount.
"All three compounds proved they could play their part, both at the start, with five drivers choosing the C5 for the first stint, while Stroll tried to do something different, fitting it with about 15 laps remaining. As expected, the two-stop was the quickest strategy, but those who tried the one-stop proved to be pretty competitive, to the extent of finishing in the top ten. In terms of performance, the Hard and Medium proved to be quite similar, while the Soft was competitive in the opening laps, but then obviously dropped off, starting from around laps 7 and 8.
"Now we head for Silverstone, a track that is always very hard on tyres. We have chosen a trio of dry weather compounds that is a step softer than in the past (C2, C3 and C4) and we are keen to see how they will perform and what effect this will have on race strategy."
