Max Verstappen roars back to win Austrian Grand Prix

Max Verstappen celebrates on the podium following his victory in the austrian Grand Prix, though he has to wait another three hours before FIA officials confirmed the win. Picture: AFP/Getty.

The Red Bull driver, roared on by his large Dutch following at a sweltering Spielberg, denied Charles Leclerc the first win of his career by passing the young Ferrari driver with only two laps to go.

Verstappen kept his victory after he escaped a penalty for his winning move on Leclerc.

More than three hours after the Red Bull driver took the chequered flag in Spielberg, Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, revealed the stewards had decided to take no further action over the  incident.

“It is hard racing, otherwise we have to stay at home,” said Verstappen when informed he was under investigation.

“If those things are not allowed in racing, then what is the point in being in Formula One?”

Leclerc said: “I was on the outside of the corner the lap before. He left the space, but he didn’t on the next lap. I had to go wide and didn’t have a chance to come back at him.”

Verstappen began alongside Leclerc, pictured, on the front row but dropped to seventh following a torrid start.

The Dutch driver was then running in fourth place with 20 laps to run, but passed Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas and finally Leclerc in a stunning end to the race.

Bottas finished third for Mercedes, while Vettel fought his way past Lewis Hamilton on the penultimate lap to take fourth.

Hamilton will head to his home race at Silverstone in a fortnight’s time, 31 points clear of Bottas in the championship.

British teenager Lando Norris finished sixth for McLaren, equalling his career best.

Leclerc did not put a foot wrong, and his initial cause was aided by troubles for his rivals. As Leclerc roared down to the first corner, Verstappen, who started alongside the Ferrari driver on the front row, staggered away from his marks, losing five places to  seventh.

Vettel made up five spots, and was running in fourth when he made his first stop, but his Ferrari crew were not ready for him. As the mechanics came running out from the garage with Vettel’s tyres, one was almost mowed down by Bottas’ Mercedes. He stayed on his feet, but the stop took three times longer than it should have, and the German fell down the order to eighth.

Then, with Hamilton mounting a charge, he ran off the road, damaging his wing. That left Leclerc leading from Bottas, Vettel, Verstappen and Hamilton at the midway stage.

Verstappen, at Red Bull’s home race, then began to make amends for his slow getaway.

Turning on the style, he roared past Vettel on lap 50. Five laps later he dived underneath Bottas to take second place, with Leclerc five seconds up the road.

Surely, he couldn’t do the unthinkable?

But by this stage, Verstappen was one second faster than Leclerc, and with a handful of laps to go was crawling all over the back of the Monegasque’s  gearbox.

The two 21-year-olds went wheel-to-wheel in a brilliant finale, before Verstappen’s contentious move at the right-handed Turn 3 on lap 69 of 71.

Leclerc felt Verstappen did not leave him enough room, the pair banging wheels on the exit, Leclerc falling off the circuit and the Dutchman going on to clinch victory.

Hamilton, meanwhile, does not expect Mercedes’ lacklustre showing to derail his championship charge.

The Briton, who finished fifth, had to lift and coast throughout the race due to his Mercedes engine overheating in the extreme heat. Hamilton’s race was also hampered when he ran over the kerbs and had to stop for a new front wing.

“We have not had any problems up until this race,” said Hamilton after his Mercedes team were beaten for the first time this year.

“The race in Budapest will be hot but I don’t think this performance will happen in a lot of places.”

Mercedes have dominated this season with six one-two finishes from nine rounds. This marked the first race Hamilton has failed to finish in the top two.

The five-time world champion added: “We knew it would be a difficult weekend, and it has been more painful than we thought but, as a team, we have not been complacent at all.”

Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal said: “From a fan’s perspective, this was a really exciting race to watch. However, from our team’s perspective, it was a difficult day.

“It’s clear that we have to fix our cooling problems for the coming hot European races.

“We knew that it was our Achilles heel and we were carrying the problem since the beginning of the season.

“We tried to work on mitigating the performance loss but in the end it was really painful to watch them cruising, not being able to defend or attack.

“But the bad days are the ones when we learn the most to come back stronger.”