Race
F1 2021
Round 8

Verstappen WINS Honda's Fourth Race In A Row #F1

at Red Bull Ring

Max dominated the Styrian Grand Prix to extend his championship lead as we won Red Bull Racing’s home race again, with three Honda-powered cars scoring points.

Verstappen WINS Honda's Fourth Race In A Row #F1

Max started the race on the medium compound, the other three Honda drivers on the softs, with both Red Bulls and Pierre in the top six and Yuki unfortunately forced to start on the softs he qualified on in Q2 despite a grid penalty meaning he lined up 11th.

 

While Max retained the lead and Sergio fought for third place with Norris, Pierre was extremely unlucky to have his race ended on the first lap. Charles Leclerc’s front wing just clipped Pierre’s left rear tyre on the run to Turn 3 and gave him a puncture that would cause too much damage to allow him to continue.

 

While one side of the Scuderia AlphaTauri garage was left frustrated, Yuki at least provided encouragement with a strong first lap that saw him climb to ninth place on the soft tyre.



After ten laps, Sergio finally managed to clear Norris to take third position, but as the first stint went on he started coming under pressure from Valtteri Bottas. Red Bull opted to pit Sergio on lap 26 for hard tyres but his left rear was slow coming off and he dropped to fourth place behind the Mercedes.

 

Yuki made a pit stop on the same lap and mirrored Sergio’s strategy, taking on the hard tyres to run to the end of the race and holding his position in the top ten.

 

Max came in on lap 29 and retained his lead with ease, managing the gap to Lewis Hamilton through the traffic. Sergio closed up on Bottas but couldn’t quite get within range to launch an attack, so Red Bull decided to make a second pit stop with 17 laps remaining for medium tyres, allowing him to chase down Bottas in the closing stages.

 

For a spell Sergio held the fastest lap, but Hamilton made a late stop for soft tyres once he was a long way adrift of Max and took the extra point on the final lap, with Sergio catching Bottas but unable to pass and ending up half a second adrift in fourth place.



Yuki was overtaken by the recovering Leclerc but held on for tenth place comfortably, pushing Fernando Alonso all the way to the finish.

 

Max ultimately won by over half a minute with a very impressive display from pole position, providing the 83rd victory for a Honda-powered car in Formula 1, our fourth consecutive win this season.



Toyoharu Tanabe
Toyoharu Tanabe
Honda Racing F1
Max produced a faultless performance to take his fourth win of the year and Red Bull Racing Honda’s fourth consecutive victory. As expected, we were pushed hard by our closest rivals. A slower than usual pit stop for Sergio meant he could not join his team-mate on the podium. For Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, Yuki produced a solid drive to bring home some points, which will have boosted his confidence after some difficult races. Pierre’s race was over immediately after the start following his collision with Leclerc. Overall therefore, a good result with three cars in the points, but it could have been much better. We are still leading both championships but there is no let up, as we now prepare to race here again in a few days time.

Masashi Yamamoto
Masashi Yamamoto
Honda Racing F1
This was a brilliant win from Max at Red Bull’s home track, his fourth of the year and the team’s fifth. It is also the tenth win for Honda with Red Bull Racing and so we can look back to this same circuit where, two years ago, we took the first win of our partnership. The Styrian GP victory is Honda’s fourth consecutive win, something we have not done since our “golden age” in 1991. We are a long way from equalling the results from back then, but today I feel we can take inspiration from our predecessors and work to get more results like this. Honda F1 has many fans around the world and they have never stopped supporting us, so I am also very pleased for them that they can enjoy results like these. We race here again next week where the only difference will be the tyre choice. We must continue to work hard to keep the momentum going.

Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen 33
Red Bull Racing
I am super happy to win here and doing it at home at the Red Bull Ring is always so special. I had a really enjoyable race, the car was working well and I always enjoy driving on this track.  I just focused on my own race, concentrating on hitting the apexes in the places I wanted to, looking after the tyres and it worked out well. You never know how competitive or how close it’s going to be on a Sunday and to be honest I really wasn’t expecting it to be like it was today as the long run pace between the two teams was very closely matched all weekend. Overall, we’ve had a really positive weekend and of course it’s not going to be completely the same next week. Everyone else will also learn from this race so we will of course try and do even better and keep improving ourselves so we can stay ahead. It’s a whole Team effort so thank you very much to everyone here and back at the factory for another great win today.

Sergio Perez
Sergio Perez 11
Red Bull Racing
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out today and it’s a shame to miss out on the double podium. We just needed one more lap and we could have done it, that’s all it would have taken. I think the soft tyre was slightly worse than expected this race and that hurt us towards the end of the first stint, we also had a slow stop that impacted the race as we gave the position to Bottas. The Team tried something different with the two-stop strategy but we got caught out by traffic, but that’s how it is sometimes and we had to try something. I’m really happy for the Team today though because Max won, he did a great job and I know we have a strong package. I look forward to next weekend where we will try again to step up on the podium together.

Yuki Tsunoda
Yuki Tsunoda 22
Scuderia AlphaTauri
It’s a good step up from last week and I’m happy to be finishing in the points today. I want to say thank you to the team, we’ve put in a lot of work over the last few weeks, so to be in the top ten is really positive. I think potentially there was the opportunity to even finish in P8 or P9, but we just need to analyse everything and work hard ahead of next week. I believe this has been my most consistent weekend so far and I have to say overall I am happy. It was a real shame for Pierre today, but the pace of the car is definitely there, so we just need to put it all together next week. I’ve got some cool activities planned with AlphaTauri and Red Bull over the next few days and then we’ll start preparing for the second race here in Austria.

Pierre Gasly
Pierre Gasly 10
Scuderia AlphaTauri
Honestly, I don’t think there’s too much to say about today. I was in the middle of the straight when the incident happened, so I don’t believe there was a lot I could do. It was a great weekend up until that moment and I’m obviously extremely disappointed to not be part of the race today, as I think we had a great package to score points here. It’s extremely frustrating, as we’re in a tight fight in the Constructors Championship, but we still remain fifth which is really positive for the team.


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