Leclerc won the Austrian race with suspense and an engine failure in Sainz´s car prevented a Ferrari one-two. Verstappen and Hamilton completed the podium.
The Ferraris asserted their 2 against 1 in the absence of Checo Perez and beat Red Bull on their circuit. At the Australian GP, where Charles Leclerc achieved his third victory of 2022, the first for three months.
However the engine of the Cavallino´s car failed in Carlos Sainz´s car with 13 laps to go, when the Madrid native was going to overtake a slower Verstappen to be second. The abandonment left Carlos without 18 points that seemed safe, and allowed Verstappen, who suffered a lot of tyres degradation, to minimize his lost against a Leclerc who happened to him up to three times on the track.
Leclerc ended up suffering problems with the accelerator pedal, but he held on to win by almost three seconds.
Sainz´s KO left another podium finish on a silver platter for Lewis Hamilton, who finished well ahead of his teammate George Russell. The youngster stole fourth place from a very competitive Esteban Ocon who took Alpine to fifth place in the absence of Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez.
The Mexican driver received a touch precisely from Russell (who took a five-second sanction), on the first lap and fell to last place, with the car damaged. He returned to the pits and continued, finally leaving with no options to have points. Sixth and scoring for the second race in a row was Mick Schumacher, who beat his teammate Kevin Magnussen after not letting his team do it on Saturday. The German thus achieved his best result in F1. Between the Haas slipped, seventh, Lando Norris, Despite a gray weekend, McLaren saved the furniture with a double top 10, as Daniel Ricciardo could be ninth.
He completed the points, tenth and with a very brave overtaking on the last lap, a Fernando Alonso, who started 19th at the start after another engine change. The Asturian had to stop three times due to a problem with Alpine in the second pitstop, and in extremis stole tenth place from Valtteri Bottas, who started from the pitlane after changing the engine and rear wing and finished 11th.
In a long and hard race, Gasly was penalized with 5 seconds for exceeding the track limits and another 5 seconds for driving an unlucky Vettel off the track. For his part, Norris also served a penalty for track limits and several drivers, including Sainz and Hamilton, were on the verge of punishment.
Jorge Barbero
