Austria is a special race for us as we are very much part of the Red Bull family and this event is something of another home race, adding to the two we can claim in Imola and Monza. However, there wasn’t much time to soak up the atmosphere, or enjoy the flypast of historic planes from the Red Bull collection, take in the scenery or listen to the typical Austrian Oompah Bands in the paddock.
This being a Sprint weekend meant we were even tighter for time, with only one hour of free practice instead of the usual three. So, for those precious 60 minutes on Friday morning, the engineers ran different programmes across the two cars to try as many solutions as possible in the hopes of giving us the edge across the weekend, levelling up from last weekend.
One go round the Red Bull Ring only takes a little over a minute, so the laps come at you thick and fast, providing plenty of data. When it was time for Sprint Qualifying, we were beginning to get a handle on what the car was doing, but it was clear that high speed balance needed more tweaking, as Daniel got no further than SQ1. Yuki made it to the second phase but damaged the floor of his car. With points only given out to the top eight in the Sprint Race, we were unable to convert, however, reaped the benefits of the runs, turning Saturday morning into more of a 24 lap test session. It paid off as there was clear progress made prior to Qualifying for the Grand Prix itself, with Daniel missing out on a top ten grid slot by a few milliseconds, securing 11th spot, while Yuki was down in 14th.
Happier with the car, both our drivers thought they were in with a chance of points on Sunday and once Daniel had changed out of the Lederhosen shorts and Tyrolean hat he wore for the Drivers Parade, it was time for the main event.
At the start, Daniel dropped a place and Yuki made up one, so they were running 12th and 13th respectively. The team opted to hedge its bets, pitting Daniel early which worked well as he undercut the Alpine pair, but he couldn’t find a way past Magnussen in the Haas. Yuki stayed out longer, but the shorter final stint did not deliver the pace we expected and he had to settle for 15th at the flag. Daniel looked to be finishing tenth, until with seven laps to go, Max and Lando collided, and our Aussie found himself in ninth place. Lucky? Maybe, but as the saying goes, you have to be in it to win it and Daniel was there to pick up the pieces and deliver our seventh points finish from 11 races this season.
