Tim Wright: Safety cars saved a boring Austrian GP

The delayed F1 season finally got underway after a 217-day wait in Austria, but I wasn't particularly impressed. Amid all the hype, this would have been such a boring race had it not been spiced up by safety cars. The two Black Arrows would have disappeared into the distance and the rest scrapped amongst themselves in varying degrees.

Behind Mercedes, Red Bull were predictably the best of the rest until Max Verstappen's retirement, but they were not even close on laptimes and one doubts that repeating the ploy of starting on the medium tyres that worked so well last year would have given him a chance of another win. However, it was a shame that electrical gremlins didn't give him a chance to show what he could do.

Alex Albon has finally found the form that was expected of him and although he was out-qualified by Lando Norris, he raced well, with only the stupid coming together with Lewis Hamilton spoiling what would almost certainly have been his first podium finish.

Racing Point only flattered to deceive despite having a 'pink Mercedes'. Sergio Perez's practice times showed it in a good light, but come the race this promise did not materialise and instead he found himself fighting with the two McLarens, undoubtedly the surprise stars of the show.

McLaren seems to have found some useful performance since the Barcelona tests despite its well-publicised financial worries, but Norris's qualifying effort was simply brilliant, as was his effort to get third place with the fastest lap right at the end.

We all suspected that Ferrari would be struggling, especially since Mattia Binotto explained that the car hadn't been updated since testing, but for Sebastian Vettel not to make Q3 was frankly an embarrassment.

But then come the race on the hardest tyre Charles Leclerc suddenly came alive and went from a lacklustre seventh on the grid up to second, assisted of course by the safety cars condensing the pack. What a pity that we'll have to wait until Budapest to see if Ferrari can find the answer to its woes and give Leclerc a car that doesn't need safety cars to have a chance of getting amongst the podium positions - let alone battle the Mercedes.

As for the others, Renault in the hands of Daniel Ricciardo was looking more racy thanks to changes to the bargeboard area and copious testing at this circuit a couple of weeks ago, albeit with a 2018 car. Esteban Ocon had covered at least two GP distances ahead of his return to a fully-fledged race seat, but seemed to be struggling with the current machine. It was a shame that Ricciardo suffered cooling issues, because a decent haul of points was probably up for grabs.

I think a number of teams should be thoroughly ashamed with their performances. I know these have been troubling times, and there has been a lengthy lay-off period since testing, but how is it that Haas has not been able to get on top of its braking issues?

Alfa Romeo was nowhere all weekend and a pitstop cock-up sealed Kimi Raikkonen's fate, while AlphaTauri should have been higher up the field given that Honda came with significant upgrades

Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen were both troubled by braking in testing, and both were let down in the race by braking problems. Sure, both drivers are prone to silly mistakes, but maybe this is as a result of the car not inspiring confidence - Haas has had enough time to get this sorted, it doesn't reflect well on the team.

Alfa Romeo was nowhere all weekend and a pitstop cock-up sealed Kimi Raikkonen's fate, while AlphaTauri should have been higher up the field given that Honda came with significant upgrades. Antonio Giovinazzi and Pierre Gasly both drove clean races to score good points for their respective teams, but neither team can be especially satisfied with its weekend's work.

Williams at least seems to have made a small improvement this year, and it was especially encouraging to see George Russell almost making it into Q2. But again, in the race he was let down by a problem when he could have earned the team valuable points.

I was disappointed to see Nicholas Latifi struggling. The only rookie on this year's grid had a good test in Barcelona and I was expecting him to be pushing Russell all the way, but he appeared to take a safety-first approach on Friday and didn't help his cause by crashing in FP3.

Alas, Mercedes has pulled even further away from its rivals, with so many updates to the car that we saw in Barcelona it makes one wonder if the factory ever did shut down. A new floor, bargeboard components, rear wing endplates and a single strut rear wing mounting all contributed to a totally new package.

PLUS: How reliability overshadowed developments at the Austrian GP

Both Mercedes drivers reported themselves completely happy with the car balance, which is after all what you need around this short, demanding circuit. Valtteri Bottas was solid all weekend and deserved the pole position and subsequent win. Hamilton, despite looking supreme during practice, suddenly found himself playing second fiddle during the race after his penalty for not slowing under yellow flags in qualifying. His car balance didn't look as good as Bottas, which was perhaps a contributing factor that explains why he understeered into Albon at Turn 4.

Let's talk about track limits. In the UK, the rule is that you can have two wheels over the white line: any more than that and you will be penalised. In Austria, they have a white line, but there is also an area of red and white stripes that apparently you're allowed to use. It seems that this area is a ripple kerb, designed as such to discourage drivers spending too much time on them.

In practice some teams, notably McLaren and Red Bull, found that they were breaking front wing components by using the red and white kerbs. In the race both Mercedes drivers were warned not to use them as they were in danger of breaking their gearboxes. There may well have been consequences for other teams as well, so why don't the stewards enforce a rule to say only two wheels are allowed? The laptimes may be slower, but isn't that better than having a depleted field?

In a way, it's a pity that we are staying in Austria for a second weekend, as I think we're just going to see a repeat performance - although I'm sure that Hamilton will find a way of turning the tables on Bottas. Roll on Budapest!