LiveScore’s Jim Munro gets you up to speed with the big talking points around the Formula 1 paddock ahead of the 2021 Austrian Grand Prix.

1. Is this just a re-run of last week’s Styrian Grand Prix?

On the face of it, yes, in that it’s the same drivers on the same circuit, the Red Bull Ring. But there are several different factors that will come into play. 

Last weekend, Max Verstappen strolled to a pole to flag victory with just one pit stop along the way. For this weekend Pirelli have announced the tyre choices will be one step softer, so a two-stop strategy is more likely to be needed. [See more on tyre selection in Question 2].

The weather will be another thing to keep an eye on. Last weekend’s darkening clouds kept their moisture at bay until the chequered flag had fallen on the final car and the race went by without a spot of rain. 

But the forecast for this coming Sunday has the possibility of rain pitched at around 40% when the race gets going.

Verstappen has been quick to acknowledge he may not have such a comfortable weekend’s racing ahead. 

“Of course, we are at the same track again, but we have different [tyre] compounds and we don’t know what the weather is going to do,” he said. 

“It’s definitely going to be more challenging than last week with everyone having driven a full race here and we need to be back on top of it.”

2. Knife, butter, jam… what?

Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle doesn’t just bring tremendous insight to the sport after his 12 seasons as an F1 driver, he’s come up with an appetising way of identifying which set of Pirelli tyres each car is sporting. 

Although Pirelli have a range of five tyres available, labelled C1 to C5, they nominate just three different tyre types for each circuit during the season. Each tyre carries a colour coding around its inner circumference to help all of us understand its characteristics.  

To use the Brundle barometer: The silver rimmed — or ‘knife’ — are the hard tyres, suitable for tracks featuring high temperatures, fast corners or abrasive surfaces. Yellow aka ‘butter’ is a more adaptable medium, when the track surface demands some grip and you’re looking for durability, while the jammy red are soft and smooth, giving the fastest speeds around circuits that require high levels of mechanical grip but with a shorter lifespan. 

Once the heavens open and the rain comes down there’s a choice of two wet condition tyres. The green intermediates can be used on drying surfaces or in light rain when there’s no standing water.

The full wets come appropriately marked with an aquatic blue ring, providing better grip in heavy rain and on wet surfaces.

3. Has Fernando Alonso rediscovered his mojo?

The two-time world champion never lost his mojo, he just needed a few run-outs to get comfortable in a new car with a newly branded team. 

Alonso appeared to be having a love-hate relationship with his Alpine A521 and had to retire from the season opener in Bahrain after a sandwich wrapper made its way into a rear brake duct. 

Finishing 10th and eighth in his next two races was tempered by the fact 24-year-old team-mate Esteban Ocon reached the chequered flag one place ahead of him each time. 

Two more grands prix outside of the top 10 while Ocon continued to pick up points gave the doubters something to gossip about, but Alonso has now secured three top-10 finishes on the bounce — and puts down his recent success to walking.

Ahead of finishing eight in the Portuguese Grand Prix, Alonso revealed he had done a track walk round the Portimao circuit, which had made its debut while he was away from F1 last season. 

He didn’t do another track walk until Azerbaijan, where his recent run began with a solid sixth-place. So now track walks have become an essential part of his preparation. 

“I did one in Portimao this year because it was a new circuit and it was the best weekend. We scored good points and we felt competitive there,” Alonso said. 

“We stopped doing it in Barcelona and in Monaco and we came back to not scoring points, so we said: ‘OK we’ll try it again in Baku.’

“We finished sixth so it was our best race and from that moment we keep doing track walks and it keeps scoring points on Sundays. 

“At the moment it’s a purely superstitious thing.”

4. Has Pierre Gasly calmed down yet?

Piere Gasly’s Styrian Grand Prix ended before it had barely begun last weekend, after his AlphaTauri was pranged by the Ferrari of good friend Charles Leclerc at turn one, causing a puncture and an early retirement.

It was a bitter blow for the Frenchman who was on a run of six top-10 finishes and who had started an impressive sixth on the grid at the Red Bull Ring.

Not only frustrated by the collision, Gasly was surprised that no penalty was subsequently imposed on the Ferrari driver.  

“Obviously it wasn’t done on purpose and it’s not something that Charles deliberately did,” Gasly said. 

“But for sure, it has quite a big consequence on my race and especially after seeing Valtteri [Bottas] get a penalty for losing control of his car in the pit lane, but not really affecting anyone else’s race, and this — which obviously had an impact on my race — then yes, I must say, I was a bit surprised.

“He came to see me after the race and I was still p***** off. It doesn’t matter if it’s your friend, I was still quite upset. 

“But as I said, I know him, I know the way he races, he’s a fair guy and he didn’t do it on purpose.”

5. How good is Lando Norris?

McLaren’s baby-faced assassin has been picking up points for fun, a regular in the top 10 in all eight races so far this season and with two third-place podium finishes under his belt.

The ever-smiling Norris may only be 21 but he’s developed a consistency of performance that many of his peers struggle to match.

Last season he suffered just one retirement and finished in the points in 13 of his 17 outings.

The buoyant Brit enjoyed a close friendship with team-mate Carlos Sainz during that campaign, but with Sainz jumping ship to Ferrari, Norris feels he’s spent more time this term concentrating on the task at hand. 

“Carlos and I would play golf every now and then and get on the sim and race each other,” Norris said. 

“One simple thing of becoming better mates is spending time together and enjoying yourself — and playing golf was one of those things that made a lot of things better.

“I’m focussing more on myself now than I have done, focussing on the important things, which is my driving, having a performance like I’m having this year. Spending time with my engineers and less time chatting and having fun and things like that.

“I’m not taking anything away from my enjoyment of Formula 1. I still love it and do everything I want to do. 

“There’s just a bigger shift towards the focus and the work ethic side. There definitely has been an affect but I can’t tell you how much.”

6. Can George Russell score his first point for Williams?

George Russell is becoming F1’s nearly man. The talented Brit, 23, is in his third season with Williams and has come agonisingly close to grabbing a top-10 finish for the Grove-based outfit but is still to earn his first point in their colours. 

Last weekend it looked as if he was about to make his mark. After qualifying in 11th and being moved up a place on the starting grid, Russell was running confidently in eighth when his car developed a power unit issue.

A lengthy visit to the pits couldn’t resolve the problem and he had to retire from the race.

Russell does have three points on his career record, after filling in for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes during last season’s Sakhir Grand Prix. He collected two points for finishing ninth with an extra point for running the fastest lap, but it should have been so much more.

Russell was called into the pits while leading the race, but the Mercedes crew sent him back out on a mixed set of tyres and he had to be hauled in again to rectify the error. As he fought to get back into contention, his drive suffered a slow puncture and a further pit stop left him way off the pace.  

Russell is not letting last week’s setback dampen his enthusiasm though. After retiring from the Styrian Grand Prix he told the team over the radio: “No need to apologise, we’re in this together. We go again next week.

“We get those points next week. Don’t worry guys.”