Charles Leclerc's Austrian GP victory was the first for Ferrari since Michael Schumacher won in 2003. Photo / Don Kennedy
Following a relatively straightforward win for World Champion and championship leader, Max Verstappen, in the Sprint race, it looked like another Red Bull victory in the Austrian GP at the Red Bull ring would follow.
Verstappen had, after all, won the race for three of the last four years, including last year, and the winners since 2014 have come from either Mercedes or Red Bull.
The last victory for a Ferrari driver came from Michael Schumacher back in 2003. To put things in perspective, the race was not held again after 2003 until 2014. Charles Leclerc and Ferrari went looking to break the Ferrari drought in the race, and succeeded.
The Monégasque driver took a nerve-jangling victory over Verstappen by a three second margin, that seemed in doubt over the closing laps whilst Leclerc battled a throttle issue.
He was also nervous because his teammate Carlos Sainz had a fiery retirement from the race, when just as he was about to overtake Verstappen for the second time, his engine exploded and the car caught on fire.
Sainz's hasty exit from his burning car meant Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes was third for the third race running, although he probably would not have beaten his teammate George Russell, had the latter not been given a five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Red Bull driver Sergio Perez that eventually put the Mexican driver out of the race.
In what must be an F1 record, the FIA deleted 43 lap times during the race as almost all the drivers were deemed guilty of exceeding track limits. It is literally a fine line. The regulation states: "Drivers must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not leave the track without a justifiable reason."
Verstappen was one of those critical of the penalty imposed, not holding back, despite the Red Bull Ring being owned by his team's owner, Red Bull magnate Dietrich Matischitz.
"The track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke, not only in F1, but F2 and F3," Verstappen said.
"It's easy to say from the outside, yeah, but you just have to stay within the white lines. It sounds very easy, but its not, because when you go that quick through a corner, and some of them are a bit blind, you have a bit more understeer, tyres are wearing, and its easy to go over the white line."
"I don't think we should have this, 'ah, you went 1mm over, that's a penalty', or whatever. Then just add a wall or bring back some gravel."
In the Sprint race, Perez was disqualified from 4th place, to 13th, which was his grid position for the race, as the Sprint race result determines driver's spot on the grid. It seemed a harsh penalty, given Russell had crashed out of qualifying for the Sprint race, coming minutes after Hamilton had done the same, and Russell then ran across the track without the marshal's permission.
The stewards decided a warning was sufficient. Somehow the punishment for that didn't appear to fit the crime compared to what happened to Perez, although in the end Perez wouldn't finish the race.
It was to be expected that this race might fall short of matching the pulsating event that was the British Grand-Prix a week earlier, which gave Sainz his maiden F1 victory. Such was the drama there, with a death-defying crash at the first corner, which involved Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu flipping over, mounting the tyre barrier and becoming wedged between the tyre barrier and the catchment fence.
Not, of course, that Austria would have wanted to play host to such drama, but the race overall did not match the cutting and dicing we witnessed in the closing laps at Silverstone. The Red Bull Ring is a short, undulating circuit, but nonetheless it did produce a competitive spectacle for the estimated 340,000 fans who packed into the circuit from the campgrounds situated next to the track. Probably half the fans were representatives of the 'Orange Army', with bold T-shirts brazenly declaring their support for the World Champion Dutchman, who is looking to repeat as champion.
Leclerc was understandably very happy with his third win of the season. Having won two out of the first three races, he was breaking a mini-drought of his own, and his satisfaction in beating Red Bull on their home track was evident.
"I definitely needed it, of course whenever I get to a new race I have a smile on my face and kept being optimistic, but hard races after hard races it felt everything was against me," Leclerc explained. "Finally we had a breakthrough. To finally show that we have the pace in the car and we can do it is incredible."
The throttle problem meant Leclerc was left with 20-30 per cent throttle through the corners, but he kept a charging Verstappen at the bay, the two running different race strategies.
"Oh my God, I was really scared," he said, adding: "Very stressful."
Verstappen was surprised at the speed of the Ferrari, but battled them hard on a different stop strategy, which meant Leclerc had to overtake him three times to stay in front.
"I expected (Ferrari) to be strong - not this good - and we were a bit down on what we expected today," Verstappen noted. "On any tyre I was struggling a lot for pace after a few laps; lots of deg, something I cant explain right now as normally we are quite okay on the tyres. I expected it to be tough, but not like this, so it's something we need to analyse and understand."
"But even on a bad day, to lose only five points over the whole weekend is still good."
In fact, Verstappen has increased his championship lead to 38 points, from 35. That's because Perez, who had been second for Red Bull coming into this race, scored no points, and so Leclerc is now second in the championship. Hamilton is 6th but now only 19 points behind Russell. He had a lonely race, some 41 seconds behind the race winner, but said he "definitely wasn't expecting that."
"As a team we got third and fourth. That's great points, and we move forward from here," he said.
Hamilton commented he was so far behind he was actually watching the race between Leclerc and Verstappen on the big screen! But on a more serious note, he said he was disgusted by the Verstappen fans who had cheered when he crashed out of qualifying. "I'm grateful that I wasn't in hospital and I wasn't heavily injured. You should never cheer someone's downfall, someone's injury or crash."
Verstappen of course was booed at Silverstone wherever he went, although he hadn't been involved in a crash, and he too condemned the cheering for Hamilton's crash, and also reports of racist, homophobic and misogynistic behavior occuring on campsites.
"It is not good, and shouldn't happen," Verstappen said about the cheering and abusive behavour.
"I read a few shocking things and that is clearly not okay. I shouldn't need to say this, it should be a general understanding that this shouldn't happen. A normal human being shouldn't think like that or behave like it."
Driver of the Day went to Haas driver Mick Schumacher, who finished sixth, two places better than he did at Silverstone where he scored his first F1 points. Despite a difficult start to the season, he has come out of teammate Kevin Magnussen's shadow and is looking very much a chip off the old block, though being compared to his famed father Michael was never going to be an easy path for him to follow.
Esteban Ocon did well to finish 5th, but should have been joined there by teammate Fernando Alonso, who finished 10th after starting last because in the Sprint race his car conked out on the grid and the Alpine team couldn't restart it. Lando Norris was 7th, and his McLaren teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, 9th.
The smiling one may be doing enough to retain the drive. But even if the Mercedes, Alpine, Haas and McLaren cars are going well, the performance gap to Red Bull and Ferrari remains distant. The championship race is a straight fight being the prancing horses and the red bulls.
There have now been 11 races in a 22-race championship. So the halfway point is reached. The late F1 commentator Murray Walker was famous for not just his iconic commentary style, but also his mistakes, which became known as 'Murrayisms.'
One of them was: "With half the race gone, there is half the race still to go." Indeed.
We could therefore say, with half the season gone, there is still half a season to go. What we do know about F1 or any motorsport, is that what seems predictable can be easily undone with a crash or mechanical failure. Ask Sainz, fired up after his first F1 victory one week, and the next week literally on fire - well, his car, anyway.
Leclerc and Ferrari will take great heart and confidence from beating Red Bull on its home track. A championship that was looking to fall Verstappen's way, has fallen apart a little in the last two races, and he was unable to disguise his surprise at the pace demonstrated by Ferrari - in Austria in particular, but also the week before at Silverstone. The second half of the championship should be thrilling.