Formula 1: Austrian Grand Prix illustrates Red Bull Racing’s progression

Red Bull Racing earned their first victory of the 2019 Formula 1 season in the Austrian Grand Prix, a race that signified their progression.

After Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen took the checkered flag following an incredible comeback drive to win the Austrian Grand Prix and secure his first victory of the 2019 Formula 1 season, he said five notable words over the radio.

“We are definitely catching them.”

Judging by Verstappen’s performance from start to finish in this 71-lap race around the 10-turn, 2.683-mile (4.318-kilometer) Red Bull Ring road course in Spielberg, Styria, Austria, this could not be more true.

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Verstappen started this race in second place and dropped to seventh by the time the field reached turn one after getting an awful start off the grid. But after falling more than 15 seconds behind race polesitter and leader Charles Leclerc of Scuderia Ferrari, the 21-year-old Dutchman began a comeback drive for the ages.

Verstappen picked off the drivers in front of him one by one before approaching Leclerc with four laps remaining. He attempted to pass him in turn three on lap 68, but he couldn’t quite pull it even after getting slightly ahead of him. In the same corner on the following lap, however, the two drivers made contact, and Verstappen emerged as the race leader before going on to win it by 2.724 seconds over Leclerc in second place.

This victory was Red Bull Racing’s first victory in the last 11 races going back to last season. In fact, it was the first victory by a team other than Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport since Verstappen won last year’s Mexican Grand Prix in late October.

Does this victory really signify that Red Bull Racing are catching Mercedes and Ferrari, the two teams that they have been chasing for Formula 1 supremacy over the last few seasons?

It is worth noting that the Austrian Grand Prix is one of the four races that Red Bull Racing won last year, and two of the other three races, the Chinese Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix, have already taken place this season without Red Bull Racing even recording a podium finish.

But Verstappen’s consecutive victories in the Austrian Grand Prix could not have come more differently, and that is what makes Verstappen’s statement as accurate as it is.

Last year’s Austrian Grand Prix was dominated by Mercedes early on after they locked out the front row with Valtteri Bottas on the pole position and Lewis Hamilton in second place.  Hamilton took the lead and dominated the race early on, but Bottas was forced to retire after only 13 laps with a hydraulics issue.

When the virtual safety car period took place upon Bottas’s car experiencing its issue, Verstappen made his way into the pits from second place. Meanwhile, Hamilton stayed out. At this point, he and his team basically conceded the race over the radio, knowing that such a mistake may be too much of a challenge to overcome.

Sure enough, on lap 26 when Hamilton made his pit stop, Verstappen took the lead and never looked back. He led the race’s final 46 laps en route to securing the victory, and on lap 62, Hamilton himself was forced to retire with a fuel pressure issue.

But this was not a comeback drive for Verstappen; in fact, it was practically the opposite. Instead of being the hunter, he was the hunted, as Ferrari teammates Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were reeling him in from second and third place, respectively, with cars that clearly had more pace than his did. The only other two drivers who finished on the lead lap, they finished just 1.504 seconds and 3.181 seconds behind Verstappen.

This past Sunday, it was a lot different. After falling behind early due to his disastrous start, it was clear that Verstappen had the car to beat, as he demonstrated by taking huge chunks out of the gaps to the drivers he was chasing down no matter who they were, including the two Mercedes drivers and the two Ferrari drivers.

But last year, had the race lasted a few more laps, he could have very well ended up finishing as the final driver on the lead lap.

Red Bull Racing still have a great chassis, just as they’ve had in recent years, and now with Honda engines as opposed to Renault engines, they have gotten far more reliability and power out of their engines.

There is definitely a lot of progress going on in Milton Keynes to try to catch and pass Mercedes and Ferrari. With all things considered, one race certainly doesn’t indicate that they have caught up to Mercedes, but the fact that they had such great pace at a track where Mercedes had won four consecutive races entering last year is a great sign.

They are, in fact, catching up, even in the midst of Mercedes’ historically dominant start to the 2019 season.

As for Ferrari, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that Red Bull Racing have already passed them. Ferrari have already lost several points this season through bad breaks and terrible strategy-based and self-inflicted wounds, Leclerc’s tire strategy in the Austrian Grand Prix being one of them, and they have definitely had more overall pace than their results reflect.

But both Vettel and Leclerc currently trail Verstappen in the driver standings, and if not for the major struggles of Pierre Gasly, Red Bull Racing could be a lot closer to Ferrari, perhaps even ahead of them, in the constructor standings as well.

After an Austrian Grand Prix during which Max Verstappen was the class of the field, are Red Bull Racing really catching Mercedes and Ferrari? With such pace at a track that had been dominated by Mercedes, have the Milton Keynes-based team perhaps even already caught the five-time reigning Formula 1 constructor champions?