The Austrian Grand Prix 2023 was the 9th round of the 2023 F1 season, and took place at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, during the weekend of June 30th to July 2nd.
Max Verstappen won the race from the pole, followed by Charles Leclerc, and Sergio Pérez completing the podium with an expectacular comeback, all the way from the 15th position of the grid.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 63 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 1-2: 22 stops
- Laps 14-15: 12 stops
- Laps 21-25: 5 stops
- Laps 40-45: 12 stops
The fastest pit stop was Yuki Tsunoda's, stopping the clock at 16.246 seconds during his pit stop on lap 2, while the slowest one was was Valtteri Bottas's, who stopped the clock at 31.785 seconds, 15.539 seconds slower than Tsunoda, during his pit stop on lap 21.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 3 stops. Only 1 driver tried a 2 stops, and 4 drivers tried a 4 stops.
The race winner, Max Verstappen, was on a 4 stops strategy.
2 stops
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12Nico Hülkenberg
3 stops
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18Kevin Magnussen
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3Lewis Hamilton
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2Fernando Alonso
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12Sergio Pérez
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1Valtteri Bottas
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3Carlos Sainz
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2Esteban Ocon
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1Pierre Gasly
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-Charles Leclerc
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-Lando Norris
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4George Russell
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1Alexander Albon
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5Guanyu Zhou
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17Nyck de Vries
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5Logan Sargeant
4 stops
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3Yuki Tsunoda
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-Max Verstappen
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3Lance Stroll
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3Oscar Piastri
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 3 stops strategy lost an average of 1.2 positions, while those on a 4 stops strategy lost an average of 2.25 positions.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 4 stops strategy as the optimal for this race.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Red Bull Ring, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There race went on mostly with no incidents. Only 1 divers were involved in circumstances that were severe enough to prevented them from finishing the race.
These included, .
Power loss
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Nico HülkenbergLap 12
Qualifying
Max Verstappen dominated all the qualifying sessions and took the pole by 0.048 seconds, with a final lap time of 1:04.391. Right next to him, completing the first line of the grid, was Charles Leclerc.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 14 out of the 15 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that 9 out of the 10 drivers that took place in Q3 were able to improve their times.