The Formula 1 edit

Hello everyone! After a very eventful race in Montreal, we continue the campaign overseas in the beautiful mountain city of Spielberg, Austria.

Q1

Lando Norris quickly sets the fastest lap. After a rocky race last Grand Prix which resulted in a DNF after crashing into his teammate, the Briton would really benefit from a pole position!

With 24 seconds left in Q1, the bottom five are scrambling to finish their last and hopefully fastest laps. George Russell, the fortunate winner of the Canadian Grand Prix, finds himself in 15th position, still not in the bottom five but close enough that if someone lower than him shoots up, he’s going down! As I was just saying, Franco Colapinto moves up and demotes George to 16th position. Now the Mercedes driver really has to speed through the track! He crosses the line and makes it to P11!

Carlos Sainz is pushing hard through the final turns. Currently P19, he has to find some rhythm with his car if he plans on racing well tomorrow, but The Smooth Operator’s car isn’t as smooth as him! While making the turn into the final straight of the track, the back of the Williams starts to wag slightly, basically indicating that something is seriously wrong with the car. But nonetheless, Sainz continues racing on. He passes the finish line but doesn’t improve past P19.

The drivers eliminated in Q1 are Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Esteban Ocon (Haas), Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull), Carlos Sainz (Williams), and Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber).

Q2

Lando, yet again, sets the fastest lap. His teammate, Oscar Piastri, trails behind. Sauber rookie Gabriel Bortoleto manages to make it into P3! Outstanding for the Brazilian! This is his first appearance (and hopefully not the last!) of Gabi in the top ten qualifying shootout!

Both Mercedes drivers rip through the track! Antonelli drives with a passion to get out of 11th, and George Russell drives in an attempt to stay out of the disqualified places once his teammate improves! Antonelli finishes his lap and replaces the 2-time world champion, Fernando Alonso, in P8! Now we turn to George Russell, currently P12. He flies through the final corner of the track and crosses the finish line with a time 0.450 behind the race lead! He takes 5th.

Alpine driver Pierre Gasly is still completing his lap and fighting to make it out of 13th position. He crosses the line and improves to 6th position, eliminating Fernando Alonso in the process. His teammate, Franco Colapinto, is next to set his time. He only manages a 2-position improvement, which lands him in 13th, still disqualified!

Alex Albon, currently last place, is desperate to make it to Q3 after an early exit from his teammate. He only improves to twelfth position.

The drivers eliminated in Q2 are Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Alex Albon (Williams), Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls), Franco Colapinto (Alpine), and Ollie Bearman (Haas).

q3

Both McLaren cars race through the track to set their lap times. The championship leader Oscar Piastri crosses the line first and lands the coveted pole position. Lando is next to pass the line. Can he take pole from his teammate? Yes he can! He passes his teammate for the lead only after securing the title of fastest sector 1, 2, and 3! The Briton’s time will be tough to beat. His margin alone to second place is quite large!

Here comes Max Verstappen! After missing out on the win in Canada to his on-track rival, Max is out for blood today! This would be his 6th provisional pole in Austria, but he’s 6 tenths of a second too slow. He can only manage third.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc finished a tidy lap and lands P2, knocking Oscar off his second-place throne!

George Russell looks to set his first time of Q3 and out-qualify his old teammate, Lewis Hamilton, who currently sits 4th on the grid. He crosses the line and improves, but not nearly enough to take on Hamilton. Russell to 5th.

With 30 second left on the clock, Lando Norris still drives in Provisional Pole. He sets the fastest first sector of any of the drivers so far, so beating him to first will be quite the challenge for the other drivers still in contention!

George Russell is going quite quick through the final turns, so is there a possibility for a second Russell pole in a row? There unfortunately isn’t room for improvement within George’s lap, so he stays in 5th.

Charles Leclerc is currently holding P2, separating the McLarens in 1st and 3rd. He crosses the line but fails to improve.

Here comes the Pole position holder! Lando Norris enters the final straight and crosses the finish line with epic times! Lando Norris will start this year’s Austrian Grand Prix from first place! What an outstanding qualifying for the Briton in Papaya!

Another honorable mention of this year’s Austrian grand prix qualifying will be Liam Lawson who finished P6! What is so special about P6, you may ask. Well, guess who qualifies behind the Kiwi? His old teammate, Max Verstappen! Quite the drive for the racer who only drove two races with Red Bull before being sent back to Racing Bulls! I would consider this a metaphorical punch to Christian Horner’s face!

the grid

Here is the starting grid for the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix.

1. Lando Norris (McLaren)
2. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
3. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
4. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
5. George Russell (Mercedes)
6. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
7. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
8. Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
9. Kimi Antonelli (Merecedes)
10. Pierre Gasly (Alpine)

the race

Welcome to the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix! Lando Norris starts this race on provisional pole. He is followed by Charles Leclerc in second and his Aussie teammate, Oscar Piastri, in third.

As the cars start their formation lap, Williams driver Carlos Sainz fails to take off! Telling his race engineer that the car won’t shift to a different gear, The Smooth Operator channels his inner Sonney Hayes, the main protagonist of the new F1 movie who had the same thing happen to him at his first Grand Prix. He drives his car around the circuit before entering the pit lane to retire his car. As he’s about to hop out of the car, it lights on fire! The fire marshalls are quick to extinguish the flames, but not before the car suffers a decent amount of damage. Carlos Sainz retires from the Austrian Grand Prix.

With an early retirement from the Williams, we can now get to racing! As the final cars on the grid drive into their designated grid positions, the five red lights turn on one by one. There’s tension in the air and in the cockpits! It’s lights out and away we go! Lando Norris maintains his coveted race lead but Charles Leclerc is quick to close up the minimal space between him and the Papaya colored car! He lunges slightly but fails to overtake. Just as he is recovering, Oscar Piastri comes out of nowhere and takes 2nd position from the Prince of Monaco! Oscar is wasting absolutely no time! Within the first few turns of the first lap, he’s already making moves to overtake the race lead, but he hasn’t been successful yet.

While everyone marvels over Oscar’s sudden overtake, Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli’s brakes lock up and he starts driving sideways! He manages to avoid the Racing Bulls ahead of him but hits a member of the senior team, that driver is none other than Max Verstappen! Kimi hits Max and forces him off the track. How embarrassing for young Antonelli, but in true classy fashion, the minute the two drivers hop out of the car Kimi runs over to Max to Apologize. Max quickly accepts his apology, but fans can’t help but wonder how he would have reacted if it was George Russell who hit him and not the junior driver! Not even a lap into the Grand Prix and there’s already three car retirements and a Safety Car! This is sure to be a very entertaining race!

Once the safety car ends, the drivers are back at it and racing at full speed! In lap 9, Alexander Albon smoothly passes the Alpine driver Pierre Gasly, sending him to 6th position!

Two laps later, Lando Norris still maintains the lead, but not without his fair share of worry! Every-time he looks in his rear-view mirror, his Australian is right there, waiting to pounce! Lando fights hard to hold on, but Oscar is persistent and not about to give Lando an ounce of space! He drives around the inside to overtake Lando, but Lando won’t give up without a fight! A replay of the Canadian Grand Prix, the two Papaya drivers race side by side! Hopefully this time it won’t end with Lando in the wall with a DNF! Lando backs down and Oscar takes the lead! Just as Oscar claims the title, Lando is back at it again! More driving side by side results in Lando re-taking the lead! Oscar continues to lunge one time after another on Lando, but he holds on!

Further back on the field, Sauber rookie Gabriel Bortoleto passes Pierre Gasly! If Gabi can hold on or continue to climb in the ranks, he will score his first points in F1 this Grand Prix weekend!

Much like his small stint as a lawn mower a couple Grand Prix ago, Lando makes a wide turn and starts driving off the track. Only, this time, there’s no grass for Lando to mow, just gravel! He recovers quickly and maintains 1st position.

1 lap later, Yuki Tsunoda tries to go around the inside of Aston Martin racer Lance Stroll. Contact occurs between the two drivers! Fortunately, they both recover and continue on their merry way!

After a few uneventful laps, out of nowhere, Alexander Albon drives into the pit lane and retires his car. Dues to technical issues, this marks the Thai driver’s 3rd consecutive retirement in a race and a double DNF for the British team.

Now with 4 retires cars, 16 are left on the field. Lando holds onto first, but Oscar is really taking the viral Tik Tok sound which says, “Never back down never what? Never give up!” to heart. He moves around the inside to take the lead but locks up and almost hits the back of Lando’s car!

In lap 31, Yuki Tsunoda makes to pass the Alpine car of Franco Colapinto by moving around the inside. For the second time of this event, Yuki collides with another car! Franco does a 360 spin due to the collision before regaining control of the car. Tsunoda is put under investigation for causing a collision and then receives a 10 second time penalty.

Lando Norris pits to change his tires. Oscar Piastri, who was following very closely behind his McLaren teammate, quickly took the lead. Now, in lap 54, it’s Oscar’s turn to pit. He receives new tires, but before he can exit the pit lane, Lando retakes the lead! Oscar then leaves the pit lane, but the path to Lando isn’t as straight as it should be between 1st and 2nd place. 2 cars that are currently being lapped by the lead cars, Yuki and Franco, are blocking Oscar’s path to Lando. Oscar needs to go around them to continue racing at full speed, and the FIA rules clearly state that lapped cars have to get out of the way, but the lapped drivers of this particular Grand Prix are in a world of their own. Yuki and Franco are either too obsessed with racing each-other or are completely oblivious to the rules of the sport. Nonetheless, Oscar still loses some time trying to pass Yuki and Franco when he should be trying to pass Lando! Oscar moves around the inside to pass Franco, but the Argentine refuses to let him and forces Oscar off the track! Luckily, he avoids the barrier and successfully passes the rookie. The man from Melbourne then gets past Yuki and is now back in the battle for first!

4 laps later, Nico Hulkenberg passes Racing Bulls rookie, Isack Hadjar, for 9th position! If Sauber keeps this up, they will secure double points for this race!

With 2 laps left, Gabriel Bortoleto and the driver in charge of his management team, Fernando Alonso, have a battle very similar to Lando and Oscar’s tiff from many laps ago. Gabriel overtakes Fernando only for Fernando to retake the position one turn later! Alonso holds onto 7th!

On the last lap of this exciting Grand Prix, Lando Norris sees the checkered flag first! Lando Norris wins the Austrian Grand Prix! What a fantastic drive from the Briton!

In other wonderful news, both Stake Sauber drivers finished in the top 10!

In not so great news, Kimi Antonelli was issued a 3-position grid drop for Silverstone because of his unfortunate collision with the 4-time world champion.

results

Here are the results for the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix!

1. Lando Norris (McLaren)
2. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
4. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
5. George Russell (Mercedes)
6. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
7. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
8. Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
9. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
10. Esteban Ocon (Haas)
11. Oliver Bearman (Haas)
12. Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
13. Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
14. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
15. Franco Colapinto (Alpine)
16. Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)
17. Alex Albon (Williams) (DNF)
18. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) (DNF)
19. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) (DNF)
20. Carlos Sainz (Williams) (DNF)

In the wise words of Sons of Liberty member Paul Revere, “The British are Coming!” up next on the 2025 F1 circuit is the track where Formula 1 made it’s debut 75 years ago, the Silverstone circuit! This also marks the home race for Lando Norris, George Russell, Oliver Bearman, Lewis Hamilton, and honorable mention, Alex Albon! Thankfully, we don’t have to wait very long! I’ll see you there!