Feature

F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2019 Austrian GP

Charles Leclerc (Pole, P2, 18 pts): 9/10
That's twice now in 2019 that Charles Leclerc has looked on course to claim his maiden Formula 1 victory, only to have success cruelly snatched away from him near the end of the race. In Austria, the Monegasque seemed to have victory in the bag after topping FP2 and FP3 and then bagging pole by an emphatic margin. When it came to the race, he executed a perfect launch from the grid while his main opposition (Max Verstappen) had a nightmare start and plummeted down the order. With Valtteri Bottas not presenting much of a threat, and Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton both with their hands full with their own problems, it must have seemed to Charles that victory was all-but certain. And then Verstappen found an extraordinary amount of pace on fresher tyres to charge past everyone in the closing stages, finally muscling Leclerc himself to one side on lap 69. For what it's worth we think Max's move was hard but fair, making it a hard lesson for Leclerc to swallow about what he needs to be prepared to do to be a race winner in F1.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.