Five Winners, Five Losers: Austrian Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- 9 hours ago
- 8 min read
Even after 71 laps in the Styrian mountains, less than two seconds covered the top three by the chequered flag in Austria. But who were the big winners and losers?
Winner: George Russell
When George Russell cruised home to take victory at the opening race in Melbourne, telling his team “I love this car, I love this engine”, it would have seemed ridiculous to think it would take seven races for him to return to the top step.
It looked for all the world that it would be another fruitless weekend for Russell, who spent the majority of Friday and Saturday several tenths off the pace of teammate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
Come his final lap in Q3, though, the Briton was half a second up on his rivals heading into the final two corners, meaning that even with a significant lift for the yellow flags brought about by Max Verstappen he still took a comfortable pole position.
On Sunday, the closest anybody got to Russell was actually right at the end of the race rather than the start. The Briton built a commanding lead in the early stages and held the lead or net-lead throughout the whole afternoon.
However, it was in the closing laps he came under the most pressure, with a charging Verstappen cutting his lead from 10.7 seconds to just 1.6 by the chequered flag.
It was a much-needed victory for Russell and may yet prove to have come a couple of races too late, but he is nevertheless back up to second in the championship and ‘only’ 40 points behind Antonelli.
Winner: Mercedes
By extension of Russell’s triumph, the Austrian Grand Prix was the first smooth weekend for Mercedes arguably since Australia.
Despite the Silver Arrows having won all but one of this season’s races and leading the Constructors’ standings so convincingly, a lack of pace, reliability or luck for at least one of the team’s two cars has become a regular theme.
Russell has suffered a mixture of all three over the last handful of races, while Antonelli’s retirement in Spain and Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s far superior race pace gave Mercedes a headache last time out.
In Austria, though, barring Verstappen’s heroics at a track he absolutely adores, there was little sign of anybody else stopping Mercedes.
Ferrari were in the picture on Saturday, but quickly faded on Sunday, with McLaren still not in a position to offer a particularly close challenge either.
Antonelli ultimately finished three tenths behind the Dutchman, which denied Mercedes their first 1-2 since China. However, first and third is still a vast improvement on previous rounds and marks Mercedes’ first double-points finish since Miami and first double podium since Shanghai.
Winner: Max Verstappen
Only Verstappen could have a huge shunt right at the end of qualifying and still emerge with arguably the best weekend of anybody in the field.
With the exception of his nerve-inducing tenth in Q2, the Dutchman was generally the fourth or fifth fastest man across Friday and Saturday. His crash in Q3 was a surprise, not least because it was so un-Verstappen-like, but also because there is such an inevitability around him performing well in Austria.
With five previous victories and eight podiums, it was no shock to see the four-time world champion dialled back in on Sunday, soon up to second after passing Antonelli and the two Ferraris. His battle with Hamilton was one for the ages, with his lunge up the inside Turn 6 on Lap 22 a worthy way to settle the fight in his favour.
Verstappen’s final stint on the hard tyres was absolutely vintage too, emerging from the pit lane on Lap 50 almost 11 seconds down on race leader Russell. By the chequered flag, the Dutchman was just 1.6 seconds behind.
It goes without saying that Verstappen’s “very positive” P2 is his best result of the season, coming on a weekend that his team brought a number of weight-saving upgrades.
It also could not have come at a better time for Red Bull, with question marks about their star man’s future making their annual return as we approach the summer break.
Winner: Racing Bulls
Racing Bulls’ Team Principal Alan Permane was seen enjoying a jovial conversation with his opposite number at Alpine, Flavio Briatore, on the grid prior to Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Both teams are locked in an enthralling battle to be “best of the rest” in the Constructors’ standings, but it was Permane’s outfit who left Austria bearing smiles.
This was surprisingly the first time since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix that the lead Racing Bulls finished ahead of the lead Alpine, with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad giving the team a third consecutive double-points finish in ninth and 10th respectively.
On the other hand, Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto both finished well outside the points to give the Enstone team their first point-less weekend of the year.
Winner: Isack Hadjar
It may have been an unspectacular weekend for Isack Hadjar, qualifying eighth and finishing sixth, but he continues to impress in his first season at Red Bull.
The Frenchman has now scored points in four consecutive Grands Prix, a feat not achieved by a Red Bull second driver since Sergio Pérez did so between the 2024 Hungarian and Italian Grands Prix.
In finishing ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, while finishing just a handful of seconds behind their respective teammates, Hadjar is proving capable of mixing it with Red Bull’s main rivals.
As it stands, he and Verstappen currently occupy a distant seventh and eighth in the standings, but as upgrades arrive in Milton Keynes he will no doubt become a more regular fixture at the sharp end of the field.
Loser: Ferrari
There were a couple of moments across the weekend in Austria when Ferrari looked to be in serious business. The first was the team’s apparent front row lockout in qualifying before Russell’s controversial pole lap.
No matter, though, because, having lined up third on Sunday, Hamilton was soon within a second of Russell for the race lead during the opening laps of the race.
However, from this point onwards, with Leclerc already slipping back through the field, the Scuderia’s weekend began to unravel.
Immediately after losing second place to Verstappen, Hamilton dived into the pits for a set of hard tyres, which he hated so much he ditched in favour of a set of used soft tyres during the Carlos Sainz-induced Virtual Safety Car (VSC). This stint was both optimistic and underwhelming, with the Brit soon back in for a new set of hards which treated him as badly as the first.
Hamilton would eventually finish a distant fifth, albeit ahead of his teammate. Leclerc had started on the front row but then went on to suffer at the hands of his tyres, too, to an even greater extent than the Briton.
In Ferrari’s defence, the team was compromised at what is F1’s third-highest altitude venue (after Mexico City and Interlagos) by having a much smaller turbo in the power unit, which has until now so often been an advantage this season.
While tyres may have been the other main cause of Ferrari’s problems on Sunday, the team will nevertheless reflect on the seven upgrades brought to Austria, including one to the engine, which did not seem to add any performance.
Loser: Aston Martin
The Austrian Grand Prix weekend was arguably a new low for Aston Martin in what has already been a truly disastrous season.
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were the slowest two qualifiers for a third consecutive weekend, with Alonso in the lead Aston 2.6 seconds off the pace on F1’s shortest lap. Even new boys Cadillac were a second up the road.
On Sunday, Aston fell off the back of the field, with Stroll struck down by an Engine Recovery System (ERS) failure on Lap 45 to bring his race to an end.
Alonso, meanwhile, was found guilty of speeding in the pitlane — surely the first time this season that an Aston could be accused of being too fast — and finished 18th and last, almost a lap down on 17th-placed Alex Albon.
Loser: Cadillac
Cadillac currently find themselves in a bit of a no man’s land in the F1 pecking order, well ahead of Aston Martin on pure pace but still some way adrift from the rest of the field.
To the team’s credit, they are getting closer to the back of the midfield race by race, but reliability continues to be a concern.
Indeed, chaos reigned as early as Friday, when Pérez stopped on track with electrical issues in both practice sessions, while the front bib of Valtteri Bottas’ car caught fire.
By Lap 5 of Sunday’s race, both drivers were in the pitlane and out of the action, this time down to brake issues, with the familiar sight of flames at the front of the Finn’s car for good measure. It was a case of déjà vu for the Finn, who was forced to retire with similar problems in Monaco.
Pérez said after the race that the team “cannot afford these sort of issues”, true enough for a team which brought ten upgrades to the Red Bull Ring but continues to be hampered by reliability concerns.
Loser: Lando Norris
While Oscar Piastri was “surprised” to finish fourth in Austria ahead of both Ferraris, Lando Norris was not shocked by his lonely and disappointing drive to P8.
The reigning world champion said on Thursday that McLaren are “three months behind” their rivals in terms of car performance, suggesting that his podium in Barcelona was not likely to be replicated in
the immediate future.
During Sunday’s race, Norris rivalled the two Ferrari drivers in his disdain for the hard compound tyres and did well to come within two seconds of Hadjar in front of him by the chequered flag.
The Brit did run an experimental rear wing during Friday practice, but admitted that the team will need up to five upgrades to close the gap to the front later in the year.
Loser: Audi
It beggars belief how Audi have still failed to score any points since Gabriel Bortoleto’s ninth-placed finish in Australia.
The team brought seven upgrades to Spielberg, only to finish — you guessed it — 11th and 12th. In fact, Bortoleto finished one place outside the points for a third consecutive Grand Prix, while each of Nico Hülkenberg’s five finishes this year has been inside the top 13 but outside of the top 10.
Audi may not have pulled up any trees this year, but sitting just one point ahead of Aston Martin does not fairly reflect the team’s pace this season.
On the other hand, they remain just nine behind Williams, and a run of points finishes in the near future may be enough even to bring seventh-placed Haas into Audi’s sights.
Edited by Meghana Sree
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