George Russell won the race to resume his championship fight, but it was Max Verstappen who leaves Austria with the biggest smile.

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen, George Russell and Ferrari headline Austrian Grand Prix winners and losers

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Winner: Max Verstappen

“I think what was satisfying is that this was the first time I felt like actually I could fight for the win,” Verstappen said of his weekend in Austria, having closed to within 1.6 seconds of George Russell at the chequered flag.

The significant upgrade step that Red Bull made in Miami looks to have been repeated at the Austrian venue, with not much sign of a particular deficit anywhere – Verstappen had just gone purple in Sector 2 against the two Ferraris when he crashed at the end of Q3, suggesting that he could have been in the mix for a front row start.

Having ‘knocked his knees’ in the impact, Verstappen shrugged that off to produce a very characteristic drive on Sunday, which included a wonderful battle with Lewis Hamilton.

There is always an extra layer of spice to battles between the two World Champions, and who wasn’t watching between their fingers as Verstappen tried to go around the outside of Hamilton at Turn 6?

As Hamilton said afterwards, you don’t expect to be able to overtake a World Champion around the outside and Verstappen can’t have been too aggrieved to find himself pushed wide onto the gravel, even if he immediately took to the radio to call for a penalty.

But, having cleared Hamilton, it became evident that Verstappen genuinely did have the pace to match Mercedes, but did Red Bull make a rare strategic misstep for the final stint? Russell coming in six laps before Verstappen opened up a gap of around two seconds to 10 and, even though there was a tyre life offset, it wasn’t enough for the Dutch driver to close in and try an overtake.

With 22 laps to go when Verstappen made that final stop, using the last medium tyre compound that Red Bull had so diligently held onto from Saturday might also have made a difference, but it wasn’t to be. Despite this, he had no complaints about the timing of the stop afterwards.

“It’s easy now to look back at it. I do think I had the deg over George, but I also knew that it was going to be a very long stint to the end,” he said.

“But we’ll look at it again. I personally felt like the laps that I stayed out, I probably lost a little bit too much compared to what I gained back of those extra laps on new tyres. But it’s easy to say now.”

What is remarkable is that Verstappen finished so close to the lead, on merit too, despite feeling that something had gone awry with his car halfway through the race.

“I do think that the first half of the race, we were more competitive, because for whatever reason in the second half, something felt off on the rear of the car, where everything was just extremely difficult, from bumps, kerbs, traction, it was just completely gone,” he said.

“Something happened with the car on the rear axle, which made me lose pace, and that just stayed there until the end. So that’s a bit of a shame. But still, to be that close to a win, I think is great effort from the team.”

Given the ongoing speculation about Verstappen may or may not do for 2027, Austria proved that Red Bull does appear to have an understanding of how to improve its car,

With McLaren a little off the boil, Ferrari’s pace being inconsistent, and Mercedes seemingly certain to stick with Russell and Antonelli, the Austrian weekend may have just done enough to finally reassure Verstappen his current team is where he belongs.

Loser: Ferrari

With the Spanish Grand Prix having proven the Ferrari SF-26 is a race-winning machine, the introduction of the ADUO-upgraded engine looked as though it could propel Ferrari into a wave of momentum to put Mercedes under pressure.

This still looked the case after qualifying, with both Ferrari drivers rising to the top at the end of Q3 as Charles Leclerc took provisional pole and Lewis Hamilton slotted in behind, with only George Russell completing his final run of their main competitors to keep pole position out of reach.

In similarly sweltering conditions to what was in Barcelona two weeks ago, Pirelli believed it was a toss-up once again between two and three stops, and Ferrari committed early to the three: Hamilton pitted on Lap 12 and Leclerc on Lap 13.

But the three-stop proved to be the wrong choice, although it wasn’t really optional in the end, given how quickly the tyres went from fresh to dead once strapped to the Ferraris.

“Looking back, we were probably too focused on Mercedes today,” team boss Fred Vasseur was quoted as saying afterwards, having cancelled his media session shortly after the chequered flag, for which no reason was given.

“We pushed too hard in the opening laps with both cars and then perhaps reacted too aggressively with the strategy, trying to stay with them when, realistically, that wasn’t our race.”

Hamilton had pushed to start the race on the soft, but Ferrari opted for the medium, a decision Hamilton felt was “suboptimal”, but the tyre choices proved largely academic.

“It doesn’t matter what tyre you put on our car today, they were going to drop off quite quick,” Hamilton said.

There’s also the possibility that, despite the ADUO upgrade, Ferrari’s power unit is simply lacking power, with its combustion engine having been judged as being more than 4% off of Red Bull’s benchmark unit – although Hamilton suggested that it’s in electrical deployment that Ferrari is suffering.

“On Friday, we were down six tenths just in straightline speed,” he said on Friday.

“We’re going to have to push really really hard to see when we can get the next power upgrade but yeah, when you’re around these guys…it’s deployment. It doesn’t necessarily feel so much as power because when you come out of the corner it feels like you’ve got the grunt.

“It’s just deployment at the end. Ours tails off. Particularly Mercedes – they just keep going, so got a look at why and how we can improve that but that’s not going come for a while.”

With Barcelona suggesting that Ferrari could fight for the title, Austria stalled that momentum once again, suggesting the car does not yet have the consistency needed for a full championship push.

“This is more of a reality check,” Hamilton said.

“I think we don’t know why we were so competitive on Sunday in Barcelona.

I think we were hit more with reality, which is that we still do have a good car, but we are down compared to Mercedes, just in our pace – they just are quicker. We still have to keep developing. It doesn’t mean we can’t close that gap, it’s just that one win doesn’t mean we’re going to be beating them all the time.”

As for Leclerc, he fell away down to eighth and explained he simply had no grip, particularly from the rear of his car, and said it was an overall car balance complaint.

“It’s difficult for us to understand as well,” he said.

“I mean, Saturday I think with low fuel the car was quite nice. The front end was quite strong, and I like this.

“And then in the race today, the front end stays strong, but the rear… I had no rear. So it’s a balance that you’ve got to find that on this track. On this car, it’s particularly difficult.”

Winner: George Russell

“The tough races definitely test you psychologically, and these last two weekends for me have been vitally important to remind myself I can do it,” George Russell said after winning the Austrian Grand Prix.

“Single lap, race pace was very strong this weekend, and on a track that is probably not very well suited to my style.”

The British driver’s Barcelona race had ebbed away from him due to a front wing adjustment mistake from Mercedes, which clouded the optics of Russell’s resurgence since Monaco, but there were no stumbling blocks at the Red Bull Ring.

Taking an emphatic pole position, Russell’s speed was almost secondary to his rules understanding as his experience proved the big differentiator between himself and Kimi Antonelli when presented with the same yellow flag scenario at the end of Q3.

Having admitted that there may have been a factor of overdriving in recent events, Russell has mentally reset his approach, as Toto Wolff explained in response to a question from PlanetF1.com after the race.

“It’s such a high pressure environment that you have a young teammate and you think ‘that’s your year’, and then he’s so strong, you have a DNF, you’re falling behind, and I think every top athlete, can get themselves in a spiral.

That is not spiral of negativity, it’s more a spiral of overthinking. ‘What can I do more? Where do I need to optimise?’, and then sometimes you forget about the core essence, and this is just driving the car.

‘Just drive’ is something that we talk a lot about, is just being the moment of driving the car, don’t overthink too much about the strategy, what Kimi is doing, drive the car as fast as you can.”

With the slice of fortune in Barcelona followed by a decisive victory in Austria, his first since the season opener in Australia, Russell’s minor slump appears over and, at only 40 points behind, the championship is back on.

Loser: Kimi Antonelli

It’s been quite a while since Kimi Antonelli showed any signs of his relative lack of experience, but Austria was perhaps his first slight wobble.

“It was a weekend where I started very strong, and I think because of that I kind of lowered the intensity a bit too much,” he admitted after coming home in third.

“Coming to qualifying, I just felt a bit tense, driving-wise. We were still up there, but I felt like I wasn’t driving that well and not as free.”

As I wrote post-qualifying, Antonelli can’t be criticised for the ‘mistake’ he made in backing off under the yellow flags in Q3, but it was a differentiator between himself and Russell created by experience and rulebook nous. From there, Antonelli was on the back foot, and knew he had to try to make up for it.

This led to him overdriving in the early stages of the race, and, while his overall race pace was the best of the top three across the final two-thirds of the race, he had lost too much time in the opening laps.

“The whole first stint, I think at the end of the first stint, I had a couple of mistakes and I lost probably one, one and a half seconds each lap, because one time I almost went off in Turn 4, one lap I went off in Turn 3. So, I lost a lot of time,” he said.

“But of course, it’s easy to say now. The mistakes were made and definitely without them, probably could have had the chance to fight for P2 or even P1. But of course, easy to say now, and need to make sure they don’t happen again.”

As wobbles go, it was a very minor one, and the Italian should take great solace in the fact that, against Russell and Verstappen, he lacked no pace – only a few percentage points of execution.

Winner: Racing Bulls

In the battle of the midfield, Racing Bulls may have been worried about Alpine’s race pace but, with the Enstone-based squad not showing up on Sunday, Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad brought home a third consecutive double points finish for Racing Bulls.

The result means that all four Red Bull cars, powered by the Red Bull Powertrains engines, have finished in the top 10 at Red Bull’s home race for the first time in its history.

Tyre degradation, or, more specifically, a relative lack thereof, played a big part in this: while the team expected to come under pressure from Audi in the closing stages, the two cars had ample life left to be able to respond and ensure the points finishes.

In fact, the only real hurdle Racing Bulls had to deal with during the race was one of its own creation, as Liam Lawson revealed in the media pen afterwards.

Following the first stops, Lawson revealed he had been told to manage his brakes, only to find himself being overtaken by Arvid Lindblad.

“We had a strategy and executed it in the first stint,” he said.

“And then we were trying to manage, or I was told to manage brakes, and I wouldn’t be attacked, and I was…”

“So yeah, that wasn’t exactly planned, so I just made sure to stay close in that in that second stint, and made the pass again after this.”

Racing Bulls fixed the situation by undercutting Lawson back past Lindblad, pitting the Kiwi on Lap 46 before his teammate a lap later.

Asked about the situation after the chequered flag, Lindblad said he had seen the undercut solution coming.

“I’m happy with the race, it’s double points for the team. Overall, it’s been a good weekend<‘ he said.

“I gave it a good go at the start of the second stint, and got ahead of him – I was ahead for the whole of the second stint, and then the team boxed him a lap earlier. He came out ahead, he undercut me and came out with ahead of us on the new tyres.

“So I kind of saw that coming. I thought they were going to do that, but that’s fine. It doesn’t really matter. I had some fun, I got stuck in. I think I did a good race, so I think for me, honestly, I’m more going to look at myself, I could have managed better, because there’s a few things just on the driving side, on a pace side, I think I could have managed better, so I’ll just focus on that, continue to learn, but I think I did a good race.”

While Lindblad may have suspected the undercut solution, it all seemed a little unnecessarily goading towards Lawson. Will the new-look Red Bull appreciate a driver taking matters into their own hands when a clear instruction regarding looking after the brakes and not attacking has been issued?

More from the Austrian Grand Prix

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Loser: Alpine

Having had a great turnaround between qualifying and race pace in Barcelona, Alpine couldn’t replicate it in Austria despite the relatively similar circuit characteristics and tyre demands.

“Honestly, the toughest Sunday of the season,” was Pierre Gasly’s sum up on Sunday as he came home in 13th place.

“By far. I mean, it felt extremely difficult out there, in terms of grip or balance, it was extremely hard, it was a bit all over the place in terms of car balance, and a lot of degradation.

“I had to do three stops because my tyres were falling apart like in no time, so very different to every race we had so far this season, and yeah, there’s quite a lot for us to understand.”

After the strong start to the season for Alpine, there are some signs that the team is encountering some unexpected behaviours and reactions from the car, following on from the unusual oscillations that Gasly encountered under braking across two different chassis in Barcelona.

Having introduced a moderately sized upgrade with a new front wing idea in Austria, gaining back full understanding of what’s going on is critical for Alpine, as Gasly explained.

“For sure, there is more for us to understand about exactly what the parts are providing and how to rebalance around it,” he said.

“I think already from FP1 to quali, we made quite a lot of changes compared to the normal setup we’re running which sort of helped that but it was clearly not enough, so I think, at the moment, only time can help us, and just try to improve our understanding of what exactly all these new parts are doing.”

As for Franco Colapinto, who finished 15th, he had a bad start as he encountered a power issue off the line, and he bemoaned the team’s mechanical grip weakness that resulted in a lack of rear tyre grip as the tyres aged.

Winner: Audi

While Audi didn’t score any points, the team clearly had the sixth-quickest machine over the Austrian GP weekend.

On Saturday, Gabriel Bortoleto suggested that, with Mercedes-like engine performance, Audi’s chassis is strong – to the point where the squad could be fighting near the front.

But, as Allan McNish commented after the race, the package is what matters, not the separation of chassis and power unit, but did concede that the chassis is “very good” at medium to high speed circuits.

There have been a few races this season at which Audi has had the pace, but lacked the operational execution, but it was the other way around in Austria: the car was not quite fast enough overall to finish in the points, but was a weekend of far greater execution as Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg came home in 11th and 12th.

“To be honest, I think it was our best weekend so far in terms of all the runs through free practice, qualifying, race, getting the maximum out of the car,” McNish said.

“Performance around this circuit was always going to be a little bit trickier, even although we brought the upgrades and they actually tallied up pretty well, the Racing Bulls were quicker, end of story. And once they’re ahead, it’s very difficult to race them, you know.

“I am quite happy, because it was a big step forward again. If you think back just a couple of races ago, it was another step in the right direction, but now we need to maintain that sort of level of performance in terms of execution, getting the maximum out of it, and then when things are a little bit more in our favour, to take the advantage of it.”

While Audi’s points tally, just two, remains underwhelming, there is a sense that, at any weekend, Audi will unlock all its potential, and emerge to fight properly with Alpine and Racing Bulls for the best of the rest behind the top four teams.

Loser: Cadillac

Both Cadillacs were out of the race within a few minutes of the start, having encountered overheating issues – perhaps indicative of the team’s lack of experience with regard to getting the level of cooling required correct.

“I think we underestimated the effect of traffic, and we’ve been having issues all weekend,” Sergio Perez said.

With the Mexican a few weeks out from deciding where he sees his future in 2027, the timing of such a difficult weekend for Cadillac – coming alongside a good step forward in terms of aerodynamic upgrades – he admitted that it’s frustrating not to have seen progress in terms of operational deficiences.

“I think it’s been the worst weekend. It feels like we took four or five steps backwards,” he said.

“So there needs to be a massive process thinking on how we’re doing things, especially when it comes to upgrades, because today what happened was totally unacceptable and very unfortunate as well for the team. So I’m sure that we will be able to sort it out for coming races.

“We always expected these things to occur to a new team, obviously, but I think the frustration comes from from the lack of progress. So, I’m sure that this upgrade will help us to understand a lot of those deficiencies, and I do expect a massive step forward in reliability going to Silverstone.”

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Max Verstappen and George Russell shine as Ferrari lead Austrian GP losers