Carlos Sainz's win on the weekend ended Red Bull's dominant streak after 308 days since the last non Red Bull winner of George Russell.
Image: Mark Sutton
After 15 wins in a row as a team, Red Bull's impressive streak was ended after a disappointing weekend for the championship leaders and it was Carlos Sainz who put the streak to bed with Ferrari.
Sainz showed instant pace after finishing 2nd in FP1, 1st in FP2 and 1st again in FP3 as things were looking positive for the Spaniard going into qualifying. In Q3, Carlos was one of the first to cross the line and as the others followed, no one could match him despite Russell and Leclerc getting within 7 hundereths of the Ferrari.
Sainz started on pole for the second race in a row and managed a better start than Russell in his Mercedes in second. His teammate Leclerc started on softs unlike others who started on the whole on medium tyres and jumped ahead of Russell going into the first corner putting the 2 Ferrari's 1 and 2.
For the majority of the opening laps, Ferrari went into pace management as Leclerc helped protect Sainz's lead as the field had little spread in comparison to what we normally see in previous races. On lap 20 however, this was stopped as the safety car was deployed after Logan Sargeant's incident resulting in debris on the track.
This resulted in all the leaders pitting and the driver who lost out most was Leclerc as he was left in his pit box for around 3 seconds longer than he would of wanted as the team had to wait for a gap before releasing their driver back into the pitlane. This dropped him behind Lando Norris who was running 4th before the Safety car.
Once the safety car came in on lap 22, Sainz entered his pace management phase once more but didn't have his teammates help. On lap 43, Esteban Ocon triggered a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) after stopping on track at the pit lane exit and Mercedes decided to pit both cars onto fresh mediums which set up a fierce battle for the lead on the last few laps.
By lap 54, both Mercedes had caught the top 2 of Sainz and Norris and they were all covered by 1.4 seconds. For the next 8 laps, Russell tried hard to overtake Norris for second but couldn't quite make it and unfortunately crashed on the final lap after clipping the barrier.
Despite all the action behind him, Sainz crossed the line to win for the first time since the 2022 British Grand Prix as he ended Red Bull's 15 race win streak.
What happened to Red Bull?
On the weekend where they had the first opportunity to wrap up the constructors championship, Red Bull really had a weekend to forget after struggles all weekend which seemed to get worse and worse.
Image: Mark Sutton
Their struggles were first apparent in practice as both drivers struggled with the rear as they were forced to wait longer than usual to go on the throttle to prevent the rear from sliding. Despite a better practice 3, Red Bull were still not optimistic going into qualifying and we saw why as neither driver made it into the final part of qualifying for the first time since Russia 2018 for Red Bull.
In the race, Red Bull did an alternative strategy to most as they started on the hard tyre which didn't plan out for them as they wanted to go long but the lap 20 safety car didn't help. As neither driver pitted, Verstappen jumped to second and Perez was promoted 4th. Although once the safety car had released the field, the 2 Red Bulls had no chance against the newer tyres and dropped down the order quickly which is a rare sight.
After making it to lap 39 and 40, the 2 Red Bulls pitted and were on fresh mediums compared to others warn hard tyres. Max recovered to finish to finish 5th and Perez finished in 8th despite getting a 5 second penalty for contact with Alex Albon, he had enough of a gap to keep his 8th place.
Points for Lawson
Liam Lawson was the driver chosen to sub in for injured Daniel Ricciardo after his crash in practice at the Dutch Grand Prix forced him onto the side lines. So far, Lawson has impressed and this weekend it continued.
In qualifying 2, Lawson was the driver to knockout Max Verstappen of qualifying and got himself a place in Q3 for the first time. He then continued to impress in the race as he was running in the points for the majority of it.
After being overtaken by Perez for 8th, Lawson held his own in 9th and crossed the line to score 2 points for Alpha Tauri which is more than Nyck De Vries and Daniel Ricciardo have managed this season. He is also the first New Zealand driver to score points since Brendon Hartley who also scored points for the same team (Toro Rosso then).
Next up is the Lenovo Japanese Grand Prix this weekend where Red Bull will look to secure the 2023 constructors championship as all they need to do is out-score Mercedes by 1 singular point.