Mercedes driver George Russell claimed his first victory of the F1 2024 season in the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.to collect Mercedes’ first victory since Brazil 2022 and was joined on the podium by Oscar Piastri of McLaren and Carlos Sainz of Ferrari. Here are our conclusions from Styria…Lando Norris vs Max Verstappen: Lando too eager to make a statement?
It’s a perception that has stalked Norris for quite some time now, the idea that cuddly little Lando jumps out of the way and rolls out the red carpet at the very first sighting of his old buddy Max in his mirrors. So when that rarest of things – a slow Red Bull pit stop – helped put him within DRS range of Verstappen with the finish in sight in Austria, did Lando decide this would finally be the day that he would bow no more?
There is a fascinating parallel to be made with the collision between the Mercedes team-mates at the same spot in 2016, another driver not exactly renowned for his skill, creativity and decisiveness in wheel-to-wheel combat making a stand by trying to take on a natural-born racer at his own game. And it may be that, with more battles ahead, this will come to be regarded as similar warning shot from Norris to Verstappen.
Verstappen was probed over his future in the Thursday press conference, yet his protestations that he will remain where he is for F1 2025 couldn’t have sounded less convincing had he been tied to his chair with a sack over his head. It has been impossible to hear Verstappen’s remarks on current state of play – his comment in Spain, for instance, that his F1 2023 dominance is now “completely gone” – without placing them in the context of the uncertainty surrounding his future and wondering how Red Bull’s sudden shakiness could influence his thinking.
Add to the loss of Newey the car’s patchy recent form, the nonsense behind the scenes he could so easily live without, as well as the widespread suspicion that Mercedes might just be the place to be for the F1 2026 regulation changes, and it really isn’t as outlandish as it once seemed.But whom would Verstappen replace if he does decide to join Mercedes over the next 12 months or so?
His performance that night, one of the most impressive F1 feats of this century, is the one the team should be clinging to whenever they pause to consider his ultimate potential.