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2021 Formula 1 World Championship
Round 8
Styrian Grand Prix
Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, Austria
Sunday 27 June, 15:00 CAT
The all-conquering Mercedes team will be under pressure to turn things around when they head to Round 8 of the
2021 Formula 1 World Championship, the Stryian Grand Prix, at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria on the afternoon of Sunday 27 June.
The ‘Silver Arrows’ have had to watch arch rivals Red Bull Racing-Honda claim wins in all of the last three races in Monaco, Azerbaijan and France. This has not only seen Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton fall 12 points behind Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, but the German team is now 37 points adrift of their Austrian counterparts in the Constructors’ standings.
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They also face the challenge of heading to Spielberg for back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring, with the Styrian Grand Prix this weekend followed immediately by the Austrian Grand Prix seven days later. If Mercedes cannot halt Red Bull’s momentum, they could well find themselves with huge ground to make up in both title races through the remainder of the 2021 season.
“It was a difficult weekend as we’re just lacking pace,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff explained. “That’s the truth. It looked much worse earlier compared to where we ended up but we just need to gain everywhere. There’s not one part that we are not looking at in order to improve our game.”
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He added, “First of all, [there is] lots to learn because we need to understand – I mean, [Red Bull] are doing phenomenal out-laps – why did we misjudge the undercut is maybe something we need to look at, but it’s only to improve.
“[The race was] back and forwards, we were in the lead because Max made the mistakes. It was a bit inherited. And then, our pace was good and we had maybe a little bit of a margin even, we had just about three seconds’ gap to protect the undercut, but it wasn’t enough. We were lacking a second and there was somewhere we lost it.”
Red Bull Ring
Built: 1969 (current configuration since 2011)
Length: 4.318 kilometres
Turns: 10
Race lap record: 1:05.619 – Carlos Sainz, McLaren-Renault, 2020
F1 World Championship – Drivers’ standings
1 – Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing-Honda, 131 points
2 – Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 119
3 – Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing-Honda, 84
4 – Lando Norris, McLaren-Mercedes, 76
5 – Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 59
F1 World Championship – Constructors’ standings
1 – Red Bull Racing-Honda, 215 points
2 – Mercedes, 178
3 – McLaren-Mercedes, 110
4 – Ferrari, 94
5 – AlphaTauri-Honda, 45
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