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Ferrari retake championship lead in Mercedes fight

17:01, 01 Jul 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

Ferrari took back the championship lead from Mercedes after the Silver Arrows suffered a double retirement whilst Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were fighting for the Austrian Grand Prix victory.

The Scuderia may have missed out on the win but with a double Mercedes retirement, the fight in the constructor championship is far from over.

Sebastian Vettel's three-place grid penalty didn't matter in the end, the German retook the lead in the championship as Lewis Hamilton was forced to retire from the race late on.

In the post-race interviews, Vettel admitted damage limitation was the order of the day but it was a positive result nonetheless.

"I told him (Max): very good race, very consistent, no mistakes. We were chasing him down at the end but couldn't quite make it.

"Obviously it would have been nice to start further up. I tried to get some back in turn one but didn't quite work. I was left with no place to go and lost the momentum and then it was the same thing in Turn Three. So I had to fight with the Renaults and the Haas at the beginning at the race. Then a bit of a slow pit stop.

"So it was pretty much damage limitation. The tyre management was very good, so positive day. Could have been better, but well-deserved win for Max."

Cynical fans may have expected Ferrari to order Raikkonen to let Vettel through for extra championship points, but the Finn maintained second after a fine drive from third.

"I had to back off a little bit because they were going to squeeze together, my decision was already gone there. I was scared I was going to be hit.

"But after that we ran wide and lost places. The car came very good but we ran out of laps. I think we too it (too) easily too long. It's a shame but we had a great car today in the end. It was a good result from the team."

The result means that Ferrari is back on top in the constructor standings, ahead by 10 points going into the final leg of F1's first ever tripleheader.