Verstappen boosts F1 title hopes with dominant Austrian GP win

For the second week running at the Red Bull Ring, Verstappen dominated proceedings to claim his fifth victory from the opening nine races of the season to stretch his championship advantage over Hamilton to 32 points.

Valtteri Bottas finished a distant second, nearly 20 seconds behind Verstappen, while Lando Norris fought back from a five-second time penalty to complete the podium in third place.

Norris was penalised for knocking Red Bull’s Sergio Perez into the Turn 4 gravel at an early Safety Car restart as they fought over second place but the McLaren driver brilliantly bounced back, pulling off a superb lunge on Hamilton into Turn 6 to seal his third podium of what has been an outstanding season for the Briton.

Following a disappointing qualifying, Hamilton had battled his way up to second but the seven-time world champion picked up damage on the floor of his Mercedes after running wide over the kerbs.

Having initially been instructed not to race his teammate, Bottas moved into second place when Mercedes got its drivers to swap positions due to Hamilton’s pace struggles.

After making a second stop, Hamilton eventually crossed the line over 45s behind his main rival Verstappen as he suffered a blow to his hopes of winning a record-breaking eighth world title. 

Carlos Sainz finished fifth for Ferrari after Sergio Perez was handed a 10-second time penalty for two clashes with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari that dropped him to sixth after the chequered flag.

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo beat Leclerc to eighth, ahead of Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri and Fernando Alonso, who came out on top of an intense late fight with Williams’ George Russell to claim the final point.

Full 2021 F1 Austrian Grand Prix results.