Norris fights off Piastri for Austria win

Lando Norris fought off a race-long challenge from McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to win the Austrian Grand Prix.

Norris’ third victory of the year, leading home a McLaren one-two, reduced his deficit in the championship to the Australian to 15 points heading into the British Grand Prix next weekend.

The McLarens utterly dominated the race – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the final podium place 17 seconds behind, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton fourth a further nine behind.

Mercedes’ George Russell was fifth, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was taken out by the other Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli on the first lap and is 61 points off the championship lead.

Italian rookie Antonelli, 18, apologised to Verstappen for the incident and has been given a three-place grid penalty for next weekend’s British Grand Prix for causing a collision.

“It was a perfect result for the team, a one-two is exactly what we want and we did it again so I’m very happy,” said Norris, who added that the battle with Piastri was “a lot of fun and stress”.

Piastri challenged Briton Norris hard in the first stint after passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, which had split the McLarens in qualifying, at the first corner.

Norris made mistakes in Turns Nine and 10 at the end of lap 10, and that gave Piastri the chance to have a run on him into the following lap.

Piastri briefly took the lead at Turn Three, only for Norris to repass at the next corner.

And Piastri flirted with disaster when he made a late dive down the inside at Turn Four on lap 20, locking up his brakes and narrowly avoiding hitting the back of Norris’ car.

Norris made his first stop at the end of that lap. Piastri waited three further laps before making his, and Norris seemed to be in control through the middle stint.

But after their final stops, which they made one after the other with 17 and 16 laps to go, Piastri began to close in again.

Coming out from his stop four seconds behind, Piastri was within two seconds of Norris with 10 laps to go, and Norris went on the radio to tell his engineer Will Joseph that he “needed some pace – please help”.

Piastri had a scare with six laps to go when he was edged on to the grass on the straight between Turns Three and Four by Alpine’s Franco Colapinto, but was able to continue and keep the pressure on Norris. The Argentine was given a five-second penalty for the incident.

But Norris, despite some damage on his front wing, managed to stabilise the gap and hold on to the chequered flag for a much-needed victory, two weeks after he ended his own Canadian Grand Prix by running into the back of with his team-mate.

Piastri said: “Tried my absolute best but could have done a better job when I just got ahead momentarily but it was a good battle, bit on the edge at times. Probably pushed the limit a bit far but it was a good race and that’s what we were here to do, race each other and try and fight for wins.” (BBC)