Bottas wins Austrian Grand Prix; Stroll finishes in top 10

“It was probably one of my best starts, maybe even if it was risky”.

“The start light, there’s obviously different variations from when the start lines come on and when they go off, but the variation for quite a long time has not been massive”.

And both were still shaking their heads in disbelief after Bottas was cleared of any misdemeanour and went on to win the race.

Bottas also went into the gravel at much the same place as Alonso early into the afternoon’s session, having spun his auto twice in the morning. But it was within the fine margins of “anticipating the start” permitted by race officials.

“The jump start system judges whether a vehicle has moved a pre-set (very small) distance between the point at which the last red light comes on and the point at which the lights go out”, said the FIA spokesperson. Lewis Hamilton was fourth and Kimi Raikkonen fifth. That meant he had to start eighth.

The British driver could not get past Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull, which placed third. He will start atop the grid at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, a race that’s sure to set a new tone after the hectic race in Baku last month.

A slow stop and blistered rear tyre saw him come under pressure from Vettel in the closing laps but, as in April’s Russian GP, Bottas fended off the championship leader to take victory by half a second. So yeah in the end he didn’t jump, because it was positive, but for sure he got a bit lucky. At the time and when I finished the race I was thinking maybe I could have, but he was in my blind spot so I didn’t know. After 8 laps, the order was Bottas, Vettel, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Grosjean, Perez, Ocon, Massa and Stroll.

Alonso has completed only two races in a frustarting season – but at least this time the Honda engine on his McLaren was not to blame. “I was told he was in trouble, and I was pushing anyway”.

“Generally, I feel that he didn’t have a great time most recently”. I’m really happy, it’s only the second win in my career. “I think I needed one more lap because Bottas was really struggling to get up the hill”.

“I am looking forward to getting there and using it as a springboard to get some better result form then on”, he said. Ricciardo managed to stay in third till chequered flag. His margin of victory in Russian Federation was 0.617 of a second.

“We had to swap out a spark plug during FP2 (the second session), but the guys did a great job to turn the vehicle around and we still managed to complete our programme”, Hamilton said.