Austria Grand Prix: Valterri Bottas Wins As Penalty Ruins Race For Lewis Hamilton

Valterri Bottas kicked off the season opener, Austrian Grand Prix, by winning the race for his career eighth race wins but his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, had a disappointing race for missing out on making a podium position having finished in the fourth place for bagging a penalty on the grid. 

Hamilton could have done better than he did and probably could have turned out a one-two win for the Mercedes duo if not that he was served a second penalty over a clash with Red Bull driver Alex Albon at lap 60 and five seconds was added to his time. 

Meanwhile, the six-time champion was meant to start in the second position but was given a penalty for not slowing down at the yellow flag at the qualifying session on Saturday. He had to start in P5 as a result. 

However, the Finn driver maintained the pole through the laps to finish the quickest at 1:30:55.739s followed by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in the second. In the third was McLaren Lando Norris who made a podium position for the first time in his career. 

"I'm speechless. There were a few points where I thought I'd fudged it up a bit...but I managed to get past Perez and end up on the podium! I'm so happy and so proud of the team," said Norris on making a podium position for the first time.

Speaking on the penalty, Hamilton admitted responsibility for penalty served him on Saturday but was unsettled with today's, however, he would rather "move forwards" since the race is already over. 

"I don't really feel particularly any way right now. The race is done and I want to move forwards," said Hamilton. "Yesterday was entirely my fault, it was a bit odd to get a penalty today (grid penalty from second to fifth) in the preparations."

Bottas bagged 25 points from the race to be at the top spot of the driver standings for the championship title race, leading by 13 points over the defending champion, Hamilton.