F1 Takeaways: As Red Bull dominance continues, Ferrari flex muscles in Austria

Max Verstappen completed a "drive for five," winning in Austria on Sunday for the fifth time in his career and earning a fifth consecutive victory on the Formula One season.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who was victorious in Austria last year, finished second, while Verstappen's Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez overcame a poor performance in qualifying to cross the line in third.

Here's what you need to know from Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix. We'll try to keep these takeaways within track limits.

KING OF THE RING

For a track called the Red Bull Ring, it shouldn't come as a surprise to see a Red Bull driver at the top of the podium. Conspiracy theories aside, Verstappen continued his streak of dominance and don't let the final times fool you. Leclerc might have been only 5.2 seconds back when Verstappen crossed the finish line, but the Dutch driver was almost 24 seconds ahead before he made his final pit stop for a set of soft tires. That helped Verstappen snatch the fastest lap bonus point, from Perez no less, during the last lap and, combined with his sprint win Saturday, score the maximum (pun intended) points on the weekend.

It was also the 42nd career Grand Prix victory for Verstappen, who now holds sole possession of fifth place on the all-time wins list after snapping a tie with the late, great Ayrton Senna.

Next up on the list are Alain Prost (51 wins) and Sebastian Vettel (53), both of whom are actually catchable this season if Verstappen maintains his scorching pace.

Although it was a double podium for Red Bull, there is a troubling trend for Perez as he hasn't advanced to the third round of qualifying in four consecutive events now. This time it was for exceeding track limits that prevented him from making the cut for the final session and forced him to start in lowly 15th on the grid.

Perez wasn't the only one guilty of exceeding track limits — and it turned out to be a harbinger for the race ahead — but this isn't an isolated incident for him. Although Perez is quite capable of making up the deficit, he's not doing himself or his team any favours by handcuffing themselves to start.

FERRARI FLEX THEIR MUSCLES

Ferrari had a fantastic run at the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago, picking up valuable points in the top five and continued in the right direction in Austria with Leclerc finishing a season-best second and Carlos Sainz coming home in sixth.

It's just the second podium of the season for Ferrari after Leclerc finished third in Azerbaijan.

Leclerc even surged into P1 and snapped Verstappen's streak of 249 consecutive laps led, dating back to the Miami Grand Prix in May. Even though Ferrari botched the double-stack pit for Leclerc and Sainz, they were able to make up the deficit on fresher tires and both got ahead of Verstappen while he was stationary in the pits.

Verstappen managed to breeze by both Ferraris, of course, and Sainz — who actually crossed the finish line in fourth — was also slapped with penalties for (wait for it) exceeding track limits, but there is a silver lining with Leclerc's P2 finish and a double podium was realistic.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Ferrari wasn't the only legacy team to show a resurgence at the Austrian Grand Prix as Lando Norris finished a season-best fourth for McLaren thanks to part upgrades (plus Sainz's post-race penalty).

By comparison, rookie teammate Oscar Piastri did not receive any upgrades and finished well back in 16th place.

McLaren is stuck sitting sixth in the constructors' championship, 18 points back of fifth-place Alpine and 18 points ahead of seventh-place Haas. Next week's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where Piastri should also have an upgraded car, will be a huge test for McLaren on its home track, as well as an opportunity for their drivers to shine.

STROLL SALVAGES A POINT

Just when you were ready to count out Lance Stroll, the Canadian driver managed to finish 10th in the race, which was upgraded to ninth following the post-race penalties.

Stroll, who had out-qualified Aston Martin teammate Fernando Alonso by a hair to start sixth, attempted to pass Norris on the inside of the first corner on the opening lap but ran out of real estate. Instead of moving up, Stroll was sliding back and lost places to Alonso and Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg. Bad luck also struck as Aston Martin brought Stroll in for his first pit stop right when a Virtual Safety Car period had ended. With the field catching back up to speed, that shuffled Stroll back even farther.

Still, Stroll managed to chop away and picked up points in the end. That's three consecutive races in the points now for Stroll — his longest streak since 2020 when the Aston Martin team was still known as Racing Point.

Meanwhile, Mercedes had a miserable race with team principal Toto Wolff admitting to driver Lewis Hamilton on the radio: "The car is bad, we know, please drive it."

Mercedes holds a slim three-point advantage over Aston Martin for second place in the constructors' championship. The pressure is now on Mercedes to stay ahead of one of its customer teams they supply with engines. Seeing Norris in a McLaren (another customer team) pass and finish higher just adds another turn to the pressure valve.

YOU GET A PENALTY AND YOU GET A PENALTY

What do Sainz, Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Lewis Hamilton, Esteban Ocon, Logan Sargeant, Yuki Tsunoda and Kevin Magnussen all have in common? Besides being F1 drivers, they were all penalized for exceeding track limits. That's roughly a third of the field and let's not forget all of the other drivers who were issued warnings with the black-and-white flag and escaped further repercussions. If it was only one or two drivers then that's on them but more than 100 lap times were deleted.

Just in case you thought it was all over when the checkered flag was waved, there were additional penalties handed out post-race.

Considering it was mostly (if not entirely) the final two corners that were problematic, F1 and the FIA may want to look into why so many drivers were having trouble staying within the white line there and adjust if needed.

RYAN RENAULT

Earlier this week saw the announcement that actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney were among a group of investors who were buying a 24 per cent stake of Renault's Alpine team. The pair helped turn Welsh soccer club Wrexham into a Hollywood fairytale, perhaps they'll have the magic touch to rejuvenate Alpine as well? If anything, expect more A-listers to start throwing their names in the hat for potential ownership of other F1 teams.