Ladies and Gentlemen! IIIIIIIITTT’S RACE WEEK! I will be using this week’s episode to trial a race preview – hopefully I can keep some of my signature spice in here. This piece is inspired by my buddy Ferg’s golf tournament preview’s, you can check them out here.

Red Bull Ring | Spielberg, Austria

We’ve got a treat on our hands this week for the Austrian Grand Prix. Seated in the Styrian Mountains and the Austrian city of Spielberg, The Red Bull Ring is known for its short laps, elevation changes and, most recently, clouds of orange smoke from Max Verstappen supporters.

With lots of wheel-to-wheel excitement due to its short track length, you can be sure to get your money’s worth on Sundays. The track map posted below reveals just 10 corners and 3 straights, promising high speeds and (hopefully) plenty of overtaking. The unpredictable weather patterns of the past seem to be sticking around, with over a 60% chance of rain at the time of writing this, which could shake things up a bit.

–– Race Weekend Format ––

This weekend we have the pleasure (or misfortune, depending on your view) of having a sprint race on! Featured six times in this year’s calendar, sprint races are shorter (100km) races that take place on Saturdays and award championship points to the top eight finishers. First place receives eight points, and the reward is reduced by one point per place. Due to the sprint, the weekend schedule looks a bit different. Here’s how it shakes out – times are in EST.

Friday

-First Practice (FP1): 7:30am
-Qualifying Sessions (Q1, Q2, Q3): 11:00am

Saturday

-Sprint Qualifying (SQ1): 6:30am
-Sprint Race (24 Laps): 10:30am

Sunday

-Race (71 Laps): 9:00am

–– Stories To Watch ––

The points difference between championship leader Max Verstappen (195 points) and the field has been steadily growing to its current 69 points (nice!). The Dutchman has climbed the top step of the podium in all races but two so far. The battle between the rest of the top three is much closer with a mere 9 points separating Sergio Perez (126 points) in second and Fernando Alonso (117 points) in third. Despite the large points gap to Max, you should without a doubt keep an eye on the Aston Martin of Alonso in the coming races. The upgrades they implemented in Canada last round brought Fernando within 10 seconds of the win. Notably, this is only the second time this season a non-Red Bull has finished with a sub 10 second gap to Max… the first time the race finished directly after a rolling start due to a red flag.

As for my own opinion, I am currently a sad Ferrari fan looking for a glimmer of hope. The team isn’t bringing any upgrades to Austria due to the reduced practice sessions, but there is a chance we could see a package brought to Silverstone on July 7^th. Still a lot of season left, but at this point it seems all anyone can do is try to keep Red Bull from taking the clean sweep.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. I hope you enjoyed a little switch-up from the usual programming. If you did, let me know and I will keep these coming in race weeks. If you had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, give F1 a watch sometime. Or check out Drive to Survive on Netflix. You probably won’t regret it. I’ll post the betting odds below for you degens who are into that.

Much Love.

–– Betting Odds ––

Winning Driver
Max Verstappen -286
Sergio Perez +800
Fernando Alonso +1100
Lewis Hamilton +1300

Winning Team
Red Bull -550
Mercedes +850
Aston Martin +900
Ferrari +2000