Winner: Lando Norris (& McLaren)

Lando Norris’ performance today shut down any discussion of his fitness for this championship battle that may have gone on after the incident in Canada. His conversion of a dominant pole position to the win by 2.695s over his teammate Piastri came following a “tough” race long battle, that set up what’s to come over the rest of this season perfectly.

The race craft between the pair was impressive with attack, defence and importantly patience all on display lap after lap, and crucially for McLaren it gave both the fair chance at the win, and ultimately ended in the 1-2.

“We had a great battle, that’s for sure,” said Lando. “It was a lot of fun, for me a lot of stress but a lot of fun! A nice battle, so well done to Oscar.”

Piastri said, “I’m happy we’ve come away with a 1-2 after some really good racing. After a solid start, I was close to the win, but it was tough to make progress to close the gap again after the first stop.”

McLaren can leave Austria happy with the job done by both of their drivers; a fantastic demonstration of “mutual respect” in the words of Andrea Stella.

Loser: Max Verstappen

On a day where McLaren furthered their lead in the Constructors’, it was also one where Max Verstappen’s championship hopes looked to be dashed. He’s now 61 points back from Oscar Piastri, 46 from Norris, and Red Bull are sitting P4 in the team standings.

Verstappen’s race was over before turn four on the opening lap after Kimi Antonelli sent him into a spin, causing race ending damage to both drivers. But it was somewhat of a consequence of Verstappen and Red Bull’s balance and grip struggles all weekend that had left him starting in the midfield to begin with, where these incidents are more common on the opening lap.

Max was very understanding of the incident, saying it was “unfortunate” and that Kimi had “apologised to me when we were walking back from the track.”

“Unfortunately for us this weekend there weren’t a lot of positives and although we were unlucky with the yellow flag in qualifying yesterday and the incident today, we lacked pace throughout,” he continued.

“We have had some amazing performances at this track in the past and I am the most disappointed about this result in front of a home crowd, but we will continue to try and do our best and my mentality and focus will not change.”

Winner: Kick Sauber

Kick Sauber, as a team, are on an incredible run right now. Nico Hulkenberg has finished the past three races in the points and this weekend Gabriel Bortoleto joined him in the top ten for the first time in his F1 career, with his P8 finish earning him his maiden points as a result.

The team ran with a new floor back at the Spanish Grand Prix and had further floor upgrades this weekend, which team principal Jonathan Wheatley said had contributed largely to the drivers feeling “incredibly confident” in the car.

This has allowed them to push and extract the maximum from the C45 and earn Sauber’s first double points finish since 2023. Wheatley called it “a fantastic result for the team” and highlighted how Hulkenberg’s race was only the eighth in the team’s 32-year history where a driver has climbed from 20th or lower to finish in the top 9.

He also praised his rookie driver Gabriel for showing “impressive pace and consistency all weekend” and said the points finish was “truly deserved.” Gabi himself said “it was an amazing race – super intense from start to finish, and I am really proud of what we have done today, together, as a team.”

It’s a result that’s added 4 points to their total, putting Kick Sauber within 2 points of Aston Martin, and therefore within reach of 8th in the standings.

Loser: Williams

Williams’ race never really got started in Austria, particularly for Carlos Sainz who couldn’t take the start after a brake issue, and later fire, forced his early retirement and an aborted start for the rest of the field.

Alex Albon was able to get a good start and was running in the points before he had to retire with an issue that he said looked similar to the one he’d suffered in Canada. It came just after his first pitstop, and unfortunately marks his third consecutive DNF.

Albon called it a “frustrating and disappointing day” and said “we can’t afford for it to happen at Silverstone as that’s a good track for us”, so they’ll need to “deep dive and find a solution” before then.

Sainz said he was also left “frustrated” by his weekend, with “too many issues yesterday, too many issues today”.

“I’m fully confident that if we manage to execute clean weekends, better results will come soon.”

James Vowles, Williams’ team principal, echoed his thoughts but added a more global perspective too in saying, “we’re on a good journey towards building a fast car but we’re not complete yet in terms of operation and reliability.”

“We [have] 13 races in front of us this season and they’re key races to build this muscle and this capability to make sure that, as we move up the grid and we get faster and faster, we’re able to fight at the front with the very best.”

Winner: Liam Lawson

Liam Lawson is leaving Red Bull’s home race as the only one of their four drivers to score points after what was his career best finish and the sister team’s best result since Azerbaijan in 2022 where Gasly finished fifth.

The P6 result for the Kiwi driver was set up by his achievement of the same position in qualifying, but also with some incredible luck that meant he narrowly missed being tagged by Antonelli in turn 3 and suffering a similar fate to Verstappen.

From there he ran the alternate, one-stop strategy which worked out perfectly, and surviving Fernando Alonso putting pressure on from behind for much of the race earned him the chance at finally demonstrating the potential he has shown since returning to Racing Bulls in the official results.

“It was a great weekend,” Liam said, “it feels good to execute everything well. It’s been a tough season so far, with a lot of potential, and in this race, we were quick where it mattered and managed to see it through.”

Laurent Mekies, their team principal, said “the pace and the race execution were brilliant” before calling Lawson “unstoppable” today.

Loser: George Russell (& Mercedes)

As the temperatures soared before the race, leaving the asphalt to rise to above 50°C, any hopes Mercedes had of recovering to the podium looked to be gone. Their heat sensitivity issues meant Russell, as the last remaining silver arrow in the race, struggled to keep up with the pace of the leaders, or even with Ferrari as the second quickest team. He reflected that “P5 was therefore the maximum we could have done today”.

“Finishing 60 seconds away from the winning driver in Lando [Norris] shows the work we need to do. Thankfully, we know the areas where we need to improve and we will be working hard towards this.”

Toto Wolff outlined these as “a more abrasive asphalt, longer corners and high temperatures” – all of which left Russell with higher than expected degradation and therefore a race of management.

“Fortunately, we get back racing straight away next weekend,” said Wolff, “we are more confident heading there as the lower temperatures should help us perform better and we have been competitive at Silverstone in recent years.”

Winner: Haas

Haas struggled for single lap pace yesterday, but once again found themselves able to recover this and get right back into the mix with their better race pace today. Running split strategies between the drivers meant Esteban Ocon could recover his P17 start to a P10 finish, bringing an important point to soften the blow of Racing Bulls’ haul today.

For Ollie Bearman, starting on softs allowed him to make good progress over the opening stint but he struggled for pace on the hards in the middle stint, which is where he said his race “came undone”.

“The final run was a bit better but I had to go quite early onto the mediums, so it was another long stint,” he said.

“Overall, I’m glad with the progress we made getting to P11 and P10 with Esteban, we had good race pace today.”

Ayao Komatsu reflected that it was “good we scored a point but our competitors scored more”, and is therefore perhaps leaving Austria with a feeling that more could have been done even despite their solid finishing positions.

“We have a new package coming for the next race,” Komatsu revealed post-race, “so we need to get the maximum out of it – a tenth makes a big difference – so we need to be on it.”

With just a single point between their P7 place in the standings currently and Aston Martin behind in P8, the team are in need of an even better result in Silverstone.