Even the bubble that Formula 1 tends to operate in couldn’t escape the latest European heatwave that has gripped the continent over the past week. The challenging conditions on Red Bull’s home circuit served up an intriguing war of attrition, offering a different competitive picture compared to Barcelona which is leaving some frontrunners with more questions than answers.
George Russell needed his Austria win as much as he needed a cold shower
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
Formula 1 still isn’t a championship in which it’s deemed a good idea to show too many signs of weakness, but after his dramatic Canadian Grand Prix exit it was clear for all to see that George Russell was starting to wear it.
Following a string of bad luck beyond his own control, he was also starting to get beaten by his much less experienced team-mate Kimi Antonelli, with the way both drivers make the narrower 2026 tyres work one explanation offered behind the form difference.
Is Russell now “back” after his pole in Barcelona, and a pole-to-flag victory in Austria? Perhaps it’s good to pump the brakes on that, as Antonelli still looked the quicker of the two across both races.
But the importance of Russell’s second season win can hardly be overstated, not just in championship terms but also psychologically.
“More than just the result, psychologically it’s been a tough few races for me and I’ve had a huge amount of support which has really helped me stay resilient and continue to believe in myself,” Russell told Sky on Sunday night. “That is perhaps what I’m most proud about from these last two races.”
McLaren and Ferrari fell off the outright pace in Austria
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Based purely on qualifying, McLaren would have been an easy pick as it flattered to deceive by only being the fourth-quickest team in Austria on one-lap pace, the result of seeing rivals Ferrari and Red Bull bring game changing upgrades over the past two weekends.
But then Sunday happened, and Ferrari’s promising pace wilted in the Austrian heat as both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were nowhere on any tyre compound, suffering from excessive rear tyre degradation that threw their car balance out of kilter.
The Austrian Grand Prix certainly won’t be the only demanding race over what is shaping up to be an infernal European summer, so Ferrari will have to quickly figure out why it ran so well in Barcelona, and why it couldn’t repeat that form on the Red Bull Ring.
Shades of 2021 as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton served up an entertaining wheel-to-wheel battle, only for Hamilton and Ferrari to fade.
Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images
Red Bull’s impressive array of aerodynamic upgrades at its spiritual home race are game changing for a number of reasons. On track, it finally allowed Max Verstappen a chance to strut his stuff, the Dutchman back in the hunt as he battled his way past Hamilton, evoking 2021 flashbacks, before marching towards Russell.
Whether or not delaying his final pitstop was a good idea, Verstappen appeared to be struck by handling issues on his rear axle that prevented him from mounting a real challenge as he settled for second, his best result of the campaign.
Perhaps more significant is that Red Bull is starting to demonstrate to Verstappen that it’s capable of making a fist of becoming a competitive force in 2026. You know, the kind of force the likes of Verstappen would like to keep representing in the future. As talk over his various exit clauses will inevitably pick up next month, Red Bull needed to hit the mark with its revamped RB22 to placate the Verstappen camp. It’s not there yet, but its Austrian jump in performance is coming at exactly the right time.
It was another race to forget for Williams
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“No reliability, no pace, no points.” It’s a rather damning punchline uttered by a numb Carlos Sainz after Williams’ most difficult weekend yet in 2026, with Sainz grinding to a halt due to electrical gremlins.
Team-mate Alex Albon equally gave the media short shrift after a brutal afternoon: “That’s where we are. Very slow. Very, very, very slow. Massive degradation. And just not quick enough.”
Sainz and Albon were eliminated in Q1 in the company of Cadillac and Aston Martin, finding themselves a second off the pace of the kind of midfield rivals they were handily beating last year.
Both drivers are clearly disillusioned with Williams’s form – who wouldn’t be? – as the Grove team is not able to live up to its lofty promises for 2026 after all the time it spent on this set of regulations. Perhaps that’s why team boss James Vowles is preaching patience, declaring that September’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix will see Williams deploy a pretty much brand-new car. That significant progress will be needed to keep both drivers on his side.
In the shadow of the parent team, Racing Bulls has quietly impressed in 2026
Photo by: Manuel Eletto
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Racing Bulls has won the battle of the midfield in Spielberg with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad taking ninth and 10th, the positions they qualified in.
Both drivers overcame excessive brake temperatures to comfortably keep the Audis out of the points, capitalising on a more difficult weekend for Alpine, after what team boss Alan Permane called a “pretty perfect weekend” for the Anglo-Italian squad.
Racing Bulls has been quietly humming along this year, not catching as much attention as a resurgent Alpine, but it is currently on course to equal last year’s sixth place in the constructors’ championship while handing Red Bull junior Lindblad a stable platform to develop.
Maintaining a stable driver line-up for once, which would amazingly be the first time that happens since 2022, would go a long way towards keeping up that momentum.
Loser: Aston Martin, Cadillac
Cadillac is trying to get a handle on its various reliability gremlins
Photo by: Anni Graf – Formula 1 via Getty Images
Much like Ferrari and McLaren, this is another joint award handed out for very different reasons.
Cadillac deserves huge praise for continuing to roll out an impressive batch of upgrades, delivering meaningful progress against the stopwatch. But F1’s newest kid on the block does keep paying a price for its rookie status with a number of errors, whether it terms of set-up, trackside operations or build quality, which is stopping it from cashing in on all that hard work.
Start-up team or not, team principal Graeme Lowdon will be the first to tell you that losing both cars with burning brakes after a handful of laps is not good enough in F1.
On the other hand, Cadillac has been demolishing struggling Aston Martin on pure pace, qualifying an entire second ahead of the Silverstone team on one of the shortest circuits on the calendar.
Lance Stroll was put out of his misery early, parking after the halfway point with a Honda hybrid failure. There was no such luck for Fernando Alonso, who had to endure an entire race distance, albeit finishing three laps down.
To the two-time F1 world champion’s immense credit, he tried to look for positives: “We tried to collect data for the team. That’s probably the only thing we can do at the moment with the package we have and the pace we have. To use that information for the future and when the new car comes, hopefully be more prepared.”
Alonso ended the Austrian GP three laps down
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