Valtteri Bottas led from start to finish and won the 2020 Formula One season-opening Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.
Bottas had claimed pole position by a whisker – 0.012 seconds – over his Mercedes teammate and defending world champion, Lewis Hamilton, and it was looking as if those two would tussle for the race win right off the bat – until 90 minutes before race start, Red Bull complained that Hamilton had failed to slow down under yellow flag conditions during the qualifying session on Saturday. The protest was upheld after the FIA reviewed the video evidence and imposed a three-place grid drop from second to fifth on Hamilton 40 minutes before the race start.
However, the expected Mercedes tussle would only be delayed a few laps as cars began to drop like flies with a variety of issues. First to exit the race – ironically – was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Lap 11, when his car suffered a mechanical failure. That gave Hamilton second place and Hamilton would proceed to follow Bottas around the track for the next 50 laps until Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate, Alexander Albon, made an attempt to pass Hamilton but was blocked by Hamilton and spun out. Race stewards reviewed the video replay and assessed a five-second penalty on Hamilton for his maneuvers.
Albon left the race eight laps later with a mechanical failure and those five seconds would come back to haunt Hamilton as both Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Lando Norris were able to finish within five seconds of Hamilton to bump Hamilton off the podium and into fourth place with the penalty time assessed.
2020 Austrian Grand Prix Top 10
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari
3 Lando Norris McLaren
4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
5 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren
6 Sergio Pérez Racing Point
7 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri
8 Esteban Ocon Renault
9 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo
10 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari