F1 Paddock Notebook - Austrian GP Sunday

Recapping all of the additional news and notes following the Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, Crash.net F1 Editor Luke Smith brings you his paddock notebook.

- Max Verstappen became the fourth different winner of the season on Sunday in Austria, picking up his fourth grand prix victory. The result also marked Red Bull's first home grand prix victory, coming at the fifth attempt following the return of the Austrian Grand Prix in 2014.

- Despite running 1-2 for the opening 13 laps, Mercedes saw its hopes of victory disappear with a double DNF, its first since the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix when Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton collided. It also ended a record streak of 31 consecutive races in the points for Hamilton, stretching back to Malaysia 2016.

- More concerningly for his 2018 title aspirations, Hamilton lost the lead of the F1 drivers' championship just seven days after regaining it, with the gap returning to a single point in favour of Sebastian Vettel (as it was pre-France). Vettel's third-place finish allowed him to gain a position.

- This was the first race this season not to feature a Mercedes driver on the podium.

- Vettel was left to recover from a grid penalty for impeding Carlos Sainz Jr. in qualifying, but slipped back from P6 off the line, making his task all the more difficult. He passed Romain Grosjean on Lap 3 before losing a place to Kevin Magnussen as Ferrari stacked its drivers in the pits, but was able to take back the position one lap later.

- Haas charged to its best-ever result in F1, coming on its 50th grand prix weekend since its debut in Australia in 2016. Romain Grosjean's fourth-place finish saw him go one-better than the P5 he achieved in Bahrain in 2016 (the team's second race), a result matched by Magnussen in Bahrain earlier this year. With Magnussen also finishing P5 today, the team was left to celebrate its combined best team result, as well as gaining two places in the constructors' championship ahead of McLaren and Force India.

- Force India drivers Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez took P6 and P7, recovering from neither driver reaching Q3 on Saturday. Ocon had a more beneficial strategy, pitting under the VSC, but was caught by Perez on-track - who pitted on Lap 26 - with 10 laps to go. Force India told the drivers to swap positions to give Perez a chance to try and catch Magnussen ahead, before swapping them back - much to Perez's chagrin - on the final lap.

- Toro Rosso also did some driver swapping, giving Brendon Hartley the call to let Pierre Gasly past on Lap 27. Gasly had already pitted under the VSC, but was struggling with damage on his Toro Rosso car following his first-lap hit from Stoffel Vandoorne. Hartley felt he had better pace and grew frustrated before eventually retiring from the race due to an unspecified issue. Honda confirmed that it was not power unit-related, though.

- Vandoorne himself had a miserable race, pitting at the end of the first lap due to front wing damage before going a lap down after just six laps of the race. The Belgian ultimately retired with a handful of laps left in the race due to a gearbox problem.

- McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso was able to recover from a pit lane start to finish the race eighth, benefitting from the tyre issues many of the cars ahead faced. The Spaniard admitted the result was "completely unexpected" after the race, but stressed McLaren must get to the bottom of its lack of pace in Austria.

- Sauber recorded its first double points finish China 2015 when Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson both scored points. Charles Leclerc charged to P9 for the team ahead of Ericsson in 10th, with the pair given the call to swap positions on the last lap.

- Renault had its first point-less race of the season as Nico Hulkenberg retired early due to an engine problem and Carlos Sainz Jr. finished down in 12th after suffering from the same kind of tyre blistering that had hampered the likes of Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton. Sainz was the first driver to come in for a second stop out of those on regular strategies, but was unable to recover through the field, ultimately finishing 11 seconds back from the points.

- Despite a decent qualifying result and a race of attrition, Williams' woeful season continued as Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin finished two laps down in 13th and 14th. Sirotkin is now the only driver not to score points this season following Grosjean's charge to P4.

- The fastest lap was set by Kimi Raikkonen on the final lap of the race, dialling in at 1m06.957s. This is a new track record at the Red Bull Ring. Raikkonen also topped the speed trap in the race, topping out at 327.6 km/h, while the fastest pit stop time came at Lewis Hamilton's second stop where he went from pit entry to pit exit in 20.980 seconds.

- Organisers of the Austrian Grand Prix announced a race weekend attendance of 185,000, up from 145,000 last year. Some 20,000 fans were estimated to have made the trip down from the Netherlands to cheer on race winner Verstappen.