Max Verstappen wins Austrian F1 GP as Mercedes fails to finish

On a day Mercedes failed to finish, Max Verstappen led Red Bull to their first ever victory at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas retired from the race with mechanical issues and it was the first time that no Mercedes reached the finish since the Spanish GP two years ago, when Hamilton and Nico Rosberg crashed into each other. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel came second and third. It meant that Hamilton now has lost his championship lead to the German, going into the British Grand Prix next weekend.

Bottas, who had started from pole, retired on lap 14 with a hydraulic problem linked to the steering while Hamilton ground to a halt on lap 63 with a drop in pressure in the fuel system. Hamilton saw his lead of 14 points swing to a single-point deficit to Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel,

While both Red Bulls and Ferraris went to their boxes to have their tires changed, Mercedes surprisingly let Hamilton driving on. When the defending champion made his stop 10 laps later, he dropped to fourth.

Mercedes’ chief strategist, James Vowles, immediately apologized to Hamilton over the board radio for the mistake. But couldn’t stop the  power engine, which went out of control because of the high track temperature.

Mercedes had won all four previous races since the Austrian GP was reinstated to the F1 calendar following a 10-year absence in 2014, with Hamilton and Bottas the only drivers in Sunday’s field to have won the race before.

Verstappen notched up his first win of the season and fourth overall. Dietrich Mateschitz’s Red Bull even seemed to be heading for two-pole finish on their “home” circuit with Daniel Ricciardo in second, but the Australian had to make a second pit stop after losing grip from his tires, before quitting the race on lap 55 with a gear box issue.

After starting the season with consecutive victories and adding another win in Montreal, Vettel recovered well from suffering a second serious setback in as many weeks on Saturday. After bumping into Bottas after the start of the French GP last week — and restarting his race from the back of the pack — the mishap this time happened in qualifying, with Vettel picking up a three-place grid penalty for impeding Renault’s Carlos Sainz.

Fernando Alonso’s disappointing season suffered another setback even before the race. Set to line up from 13th position, he had to start from the pit lane after McLaren made changes to the car earlier Sunday, including an adapted front wing and a new energy recovering system.

At just over 4.3 kilometers (2.7 miles), the track is the shortest on the F1 calendar. It features just nine turns and four long straights, with inclines of up to 12 percent.