The VSC tactic that encouraged Red Bull to lose the lead in Verstappen's Austrian GP triumph

Really, the thing that went the most wrong for Red Bull last Sunday at Formula 1’s 2023 Austrian Grand Prix was its pre-race jetpack demonstration. Having blasted at irritating volume around the track pointlessly wasting energy, one pilot lost control between the two final corners of the Red Bull Ring and wiped out on the course. But he was soon back on his feet and waving to the crowd.

Much the same could be said of Max Verstappen having to chase down and pass Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to take his fifth successive win. The Dutchman’s fifth victory at his team’s home track provided another homage to the late Dietrich Mateschitz and was sealed in front of the Red Bull co-founder’s son Mark and the company’s new marketer-in-chief Oliver Mintzlaff.

It might only have been a minor inconvenience losing 10 seconds against Ferrari’s virtual safety car pitstop, but that situation for Verstappen actually made last Sunday’s event the most strategically interesting of any so far in 2023.

It started with Verstappen having to fend off Leclerc’s attentions at the start – a phase Leclerc made slightly harder for himself by leaving at least a full wheel rotation gap to his grid box front limit. Nevertheless, as both launched well, the Red Bull quickly chopped across the Ferrari’s bows to seal off the route to Turn 1’s inside.

Leclerc stayed on it, though, surging to Verstappen’s outside in an audacious move at the steeply uphill Turn 3 right. They came very close to contact as Verstappen shifted left, but Leclerc got through the exit without having to take to the runoff – having been allowed more space there than Sergio Perez the previous day.

Leclerc then powered towards Verstappen’s outside again at the swinging downhill right of Turn 4 – actually getting his front wheels ahead as they turned in. But he was never going to make it past against a defender of Verstappen’s calibre and Leclerc’s subsequent deep moment meant he slipped back into the clutches of team-mate Carlos Sainz.

But Ferrari’s inevitable problem over team orders would have to wait. The race was neutralised after just 10 corners due to debris strewn across Turn 1 – the result of Yuki Tsunoda wiping off his front wing left endplate against Esteban Ocon.

Verstappen defends firmly but fairly against Leclerc at the start

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The pack was sent through the pitlane as marshals tidied up, with the race resuming at the start of lap four of 71. But by that point, Verstappen had already completed the crucial moment of his first stint – dropping Leclerc as they approached the rise leading to the final two corners and surging clear to lead the Ferrari by 0.6s as green flag conditions returned.

By the end of the restart tour, Verstappen’s lead was 1.3s and soon he was pulling well ahead. Meanwhile, Leclerc still had Sainz on his tail armed with DRS, which meant the Spaniard could easily hang onto his team-mate.

Sainz didn’t insist he was quicker, but the meaning of his lap nine “I think you can see” pace query response just before he was told to hold station was still pretty plain. Ferrari, however, was adamant it made no sense to swap its drivers as Leclerc would soon get the same DRS benefit and the cycle would play out again.

“As per the plan that we had decided before, if we had the chance to be second and third after a couple of corners, we would do the first stint without attacking ourselves,” Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said afterwards. “Just to protect from P4 and to try to pull away.”

“It was a bit on the edge and we were a bit unlucky because they put the VSC on when we crossed the line at the pit entry the first time and they removed it when we were into the pitlane. It was either five seconds too late or five seconds too early” Fred Vasseur

The picture then changed completely on lap 14 – when Nico Hulkenberg had to end another subplot star weekend with his Haas’ Ferrari engine smoking in the Turn 3 runoff. He’d just pitted to discard the medium tyres all the top 10 bar Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso had plumped for from the off.

Verstappen was in the final corners when Hulkenberg stopped, the Ferraris approaching them. By the time the VSC was activated, all three were basically beyond the pit entry and so the two red cars had no chance to be called in.

But as the neutralisation was still in place the next time they went by, Ferrari decided to bank the 10s gain of a VSC stop versus the 21s typical pitlane loss here. Both cars came in – Sainz dropping back from Leclerc’s rear and escaping the ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’ penalty Lando Norris drew in Canada for the same thing because Sainz didn’t hold up anyone in the process.

Leclerc and Sainz were locked in together until the VSC shook up proceedings

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Both of Ferrari’s services were around two seconds slower than usual, not helped by a slow left-front change on Leclerc’s car. This, plus dropping to avoid a double-stack delay, meant Sainz fell behind Norris when he rejoined on a second set of mediums, the same strategy as Leclerc.

“It was a bit on the edge and we were a bit unlucky because they put the VSC on when we crossed the line at the pit entry the first time and they removed it when we were into the pitlane [the second time],” Vasseur said. “It was either five seconds too late or five seconds too early.”

Red Bull had left Verstappen out, having also had the second VSC stop chance Ferrari took. He insisted “I wasn't really worried about it” as “it made sense to just go because we had good tyre life”.

In fact, Red Bull viewed not pitting under the VSC as a net benefit, despite the time it would gift Leclerc.

This is because, per team principal Christian Horner, coming in when the Ferraris did “was still pretty early on a two-stop” and Verstappen would therefore be able to press on harder and faster than his rivals thereafter once he’d built a tyre age offset.

“If it had been a full safety car we would’ve pitted,” Horner added. “But the VSC gave us such an offset that while it put us effectively on a slightly different race to the cars that we were competing with, we were actually so surprised so many cars pitted on that VSC.”

After racing resumed on lap 16, Verstappen led Leclerc by 17.8s, which the Ferrari driver eroded by 4.1s over the next seven tours. His fresher mediums meant he could lap comfortably in the 1m09s bracket while Verstappen could not – the leader generally maintaining the low 1m10s pace he’d had pre-VSC. Leclerc had been at the upper end of that region before his stop.

The race’s second true phase ended when Red Bull finally called Verstappen in to switch to the hards on lap 24. He emerged just behind Sainz but quickly despatched him on lap 26 – using DRS to shoot ahead into Turn 4. The next time by, Verstappen had already taken a second from Leclerc’s 6.8s previous lead.

After his first pitstop Verstappen dropped behind both Ferraris, but it wasn't long until he regained top spot

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Over the next seven laps, despite immediately feeling “that [hard] tyre was not the better tyre”, Verstappen tore into Leclerc’s advantage.

His pace was 0.7s better each time through during this sequence. Verstappen wouldn’t be drawn on just how hard he was pushing, saying only that “the way you manage your stint I was just naturally closing in on Charles because of my tyre life advantage and just a general pace advantage”.

On lap 34, Verstappen was within DRS range, but he only had a half-look at an outside Turn 4 attack. The next time by, the race was decided at the third corner.

Leclerc stayed oddly wide on the outside line, almost inviting Verstappen into a move he didn’t seem ready to make. But the world champion, having “a lot more grip and traction”, was easily able to get to the apex ahead once Leclerc had committed to such a position.

“I knew that it was a matter of time. Max had much fresher tyres. They are also quicker whenever we had the same tyres, so it's not like I tried to push like crazy” Charles Leclerc

Was the Ferrari driver trying to allow the Red Bull through to get DRS for the long, downhill run to Turn 4 – just as this pair both brilliantly did in Bahrain and Jeddah last year?

“To be honest, yes and no,” Leclerc later answered to Autosport in the post-race press conference. “Honestly, at that point, I knew that it was a matter of time. Max had much fresher tyres. They are also quicker whenever we had the same tyres, so it's not like I tried to push like crazy.

“I knew it was crucial for me to lose as little time as possible in this battle and this is why I wasn’t as aggressive as I've been in all the times when we were fighting for real positions.”

Such is the rather relentlessly realistic way in 2023. But, before the race was over, F1 witnessed another theme of this season – Verstappen refusing to cede even a solitary element to team-mate Perez. This time, it concerned the fastest lap bonus point that the Mexican held approaching the closing stages.

Verstappen demonstrated his domination by risking a late pitstop all for the fastest lap bonus point

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Verstappen eased clear of Leclerc with his continued pace in the 1m09s bracket that the Ferrari driver – who firmly avoided considering a three-stop strategy when Verstappen was bearing down – couldn’t match.

Verstappen’s lead reached 13.3s when Leclerc stopped to fit the hards on lap 47 and any hopes of strategic variation then playing out to the finish were dashed when Verstappen stopped again on lap 49 to go back to the mediums.

Nearly 20 laps later, Verstappen was aware his lead over Leclerc was approaching 24s – enough to stop for a third time and still maintain the lead.

Red Bull had suggested he cool his mediums – the rubber never given a breather at this venue with its short straights – even if that meant allowing Pierre Gasly to unlap himself. Verstappen retorted that “this is just silly” and he’d “prefer to box”.

“There was a bit of a discussion of risk versus reward,” Horner said of his team’s thinking at this stage. “We thought, ‘Let's cool the tyres down and do it the easier way’ – of not taking the risk of a pitstop during which 400 things can go wrong.

“And then Max was making his opinion quite clear that tyres were f*****. So, do we take the risk on a below-par set of tyres? Or is it actually less risk to take the pitstop and put on a set of softs. In the end, we said, ‘Look, let's take the risk’.”

Verstappen duly blitzed to the fastest lap on the final tour – a 1m07.012s that didn’t feature a track limits risk, with Verstappen losing just a single time all afternoon (Leclerc only lost two) as part of the saga that dominated the rest of the race.

Verstappen had “loved all the articles” about his reduced margin of victory in Canada, where Red Bull had struggled to generate sufficient tyre temperature to be at its commanding best. This time, he felt “we did a really good job and then naturally the gap is a bit bigger”.

Verstappen's F1 standings lead has ballooned to 81 points over Perez

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Horner agreed, saying: “The engineering team did a great job, as they only had one [practice] session and we put more emphasis on the race than perhaps we did on quali. That showed on Friday [with Leclerc’s 0.048s deficit to pole] but it paid dividends [in the races].”

Leclerc was left to reflect that Ferrari’s front wing and front floor upgrades introduced here had improved race stint tyre wear. But, he acknowledged, “no secrets, we still need to work extremely hard to catch Red Bull, who are still quite a lot faster on race day”.

“If you compare this with the beginning of the season,” Vasseur rather boldly asserted. “I think that almost three or four [events], Max was able to win with one lap on everybody. Today, before the last pitstop, he was just 20 seconds ahead.”

Verstappen and Leclerc were joined on the podium by Perez, who climbed from his 15th-place starting spot to finally end his shocking post-Miami-defeat streak.

“The analytics from the race show his pace was very strong and he redeemed himself with a good drive. But he didn’t need to have it anywhere near as hard as that. It was his Friday that was frustrating” Christian Horner

At the start, Perez was actually passed by Tsunoda at Turn 3 – before the AlphaTauri’s long gravel trip at the next corner. But Perez then got stuck into climbing the order post-safety car – making good use of Red Bull’s typical straightline speed prowess against the midfield at a track where overtaking is very possible and for once DRS trains where a non-topic.

Perez had briefly run third when six cars in front of him – including Sainz – stopped under the VSC. After that, the Mexican driver was left out for another nine tours – during which Sainz made an easy DRS-assisted pass on the outside line at Turn 4.

By the time of his first service, Perez was risking a track limits penalty that never came, just in front of the Lewis Hamilton and Norris battle, which the soon-to-be-enraged Mercedes driver had led since stealing in front of the McLaren with an outside line attack at Turn 1. They’d fallen adrift enough of the Ferrari pair in the early stages as Hamilton struggled for grip – due to his lower front wing angle thought necessary to improve rear-end stability – that Sainz was able to create his double-stack gap.

Perez carved his way through the field to reach the podium after his poor qualifying on Friday

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

After Perez had repassed Alex Albon and George Russell when running the mediums of his middle stint – Red Bull splitting its strategy options across its cars – he had Norris and Hamilton (with the McLaren back in front after making an easy DRS-assisted pass into Turn 4 on lap 28 after harrying Hamilton) pit out of his way before he put in a Turn 3 swoop on Alonso for a net sixth.

When Perez rejoined from his lap 50-second stop for hards, he only had to pass Norris, as Hamilton had been delayed serving his in-race track limits penalty. On lap 56, Perez nailed Norris at Turn 4 after the Briton had locked up and slid deep at the top of the hill.

Here, Perez was already in DRS range of Sainz, who’d also served a five-second penalty at his second stop as Norris had been hassling when Perez homed in.

Now the battle of the race played out. Four times Perez was obliged to Turn 3’s outside – with the pair nearly trading blows in the second attempt, shortly after Sainz locked up at Turn 4 and gave Perez and sniff into Turn 6. Sainz was regularly able to dip behind before the Turn 3 DRS detection point and then power by with his rear wing open on the run to Turn 4. On lap 58, he did so with both cars having DRS, as Sainz led the lapping of Kevin Magnussen.

But on the fourth time of asking, Perez (with Sainz bizarrely calling his rival’s driving “intimidating”) stayed behind on the approach to Turn 3 and was able to use DRS to finally shoot ahead on the outside path into Turn 4.

The whole battle let Leclerc eke out an additional three seconds to run 12.9s ahead of Perez by the time the second Red Bull was past the second Ferrari. But no final charge was forthcoming and the gap remained pretty static.

Perez’s battling drive came despite his feverish weekend illness fatigue that had caused him to skip the pre-event media day.

“That is what we knew he was capable of,” Horner concluded. “The analytics from the race show his pace was very strong and he redeemed himself with a good drive. But he didn’t need to have it anywhere near as hard as that. He did a good job [in the sprint] and a good job today. It was his Friday that was frustrating.”

Can anyone halt Verstappen's current momentum?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images