Pirelli reports on Austrian Grand Prix

Milan, Italy – Max Verstappen claimed a third consecutive win and another dominant victory at the Red Bull Ring, stopping twice without ever losing the lead. 

The Red Bull driver started on the P Zero Yellow medium tire before switching to the P Zero White hard for his two final stints. 

The other two podium finishers – Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and McLaren's Lando Norris – stopped just once, from medium to hard.

Pirelli report:

Most drivers started on the medium tire, with just four drivers beginning on the P Zero Red soft tire (both Aston Martin and both AlphaTauri) and two drivers on the hard tire (Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen).

How each tire performed

Hard C3: Used by two drivers to start the race, with Sainz running his starting set for 48 laps before switching the medium. He eventually ended up fifth from 10th on the grid. All the drivers apart from two (who started on this compound) used this for the final stint, with Verstappen claiming the extra point for fastest lap on his final set of hard tires.

Medium C4: One of the crucial tires for this race, which was used by the majority of drivers to start the race, but only two of them to finish it (Sainz and Raikkonen: who both started on the hard tire).

Soft C5: All the four drivers who started on the soft tire stopped twice as expected, using the hard tire twice for the second and third stints. The cooler conditions today helped bring out the best in the softer compounds.

Mario Isola – head of F1 and car racing

"Our decision to vary the nominations for Austria resulted in two distinct races, with the second grand prix having a very fast pace and character compared to the first one. 

Track temperatures today were considerably cooler than they had been during qualifying, which obviously had an effect on tire wear and degradation, favouring the softer compounds and prolonging the stints. 

As a result, we saw a good mix of one and two stop strategies; with a one-stopper still requiring some degree of tire management to maintain performance over the length of each stint, while a two-stopper was the winning strategy.