Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas Gets the Win at Austrian GP

Valtteri Bottas in 2020
Valtteri Bottas in March. Photo by Pixathlon/Shutterstock (10581502s)

The 2020 F1 season officially kicked off on Sunday with the Austrian Grand Prix and already delivered plenty of thrills and surprises.

The first race of the F1 circuit saw Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas get the win after he took the pole position during qualifying. Only 2.7 seconds behind Bottas was Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc while Mclaren Renault’s Lando Norris finished third and got his first career podium finish.

“There’s a few moments where I thought I fudged it,” said Norris, who is only driving his second F1 season. “It was a good race, a hard last few laps to push as hard as I can. I’m so happy for the team to achieve what we have given where we were a few years ago.”

The 2019 champion Lewis Hamilton finished the race second on the track but ended up being demoted to the fourth spot after receiving a five-second penalty for causing a crash with Red Bull’s Alexander Albon. Hamilton received a three-place grid penalty at the start of the race after ignoring a yellow flag during the qualifiers.

Much of the action on the Austrian GP was caused by the two safety cars that entered the track late in the race. The first safety car was deployed after Williams’s George Russell lost power on lap 51, while the second entered on lap 55 when Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen lost his tire. Nine racers failed to finish the race at the end.

The next Grand Prix, Styrian GP, is set to take place on July 12th.  

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