The Red Bull driver held the lead at the start of the race, but unlike in Saturday’s sprint, he was unable to break away and Charles Leclerc latched onto him.
After losing the top spot on lap 12 to the Monegasque, Max Verstappen pitted a lap later to ride fresh hards as he felt there was no point in moving on if his car didn’t feel right with the media.
Meanwhile, Ferrari was able to lengthen its stops, Verstappen found himself at a clear disadvantage and, when it looked like he was going to finish third, Carlos Sainz retired with another engine problem.
Finally, the Dutchman was very happy to have achieved second position on a day in which Ferrari had an advantage in the pace, and explained that the tires played a fundamental role in the result.
“It was a difficult day,” Verstappen said. “It was immediately apparent that we were struggling quite a bit on the tyres, and that was the same regardless of the compound.”
“I had too much degradation to really attack Charles [Leclerc]. But still second place is a good result for us on a difficult day like this.”
The Red Bull driver finally finished ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who achieved another podium finish after starting eighth on the starting grid.
Having brought to an end a rather complicated weekend after his accident in qualifying, the Mercedes driver confessed that he did not expect another podium finish at this Austrian GP.
“The truth is that I did not expect it. Yesterday was a bit difficult day and in general it has been a bit tough weekend. But I am very grateful. As a team, we have achieved a third and a fourth place. They are very good points And we keep going.”
With Mercedes becoming more and more optimistic about the performance of his car, Hamilton sent a message of thanks to his entire team, who worked hard on Saturday morning to fit him with an all-new chassis.
“I really want to thank the guys, the men and women in the garage who worked so hard to rebuild the car,” he explained.
“I had a brand new car on Saturday morning. It’s something I don’t do very often, but thank you so much for working so hard.”
“We’ve made some improvements this weekend, so we just have to keep working on the same path,” concluded the seven-time world champion.
