The Austrian Grand Prix could be the most open race of the entire season — and that’s before we even think about who’s competing.
The Red Bull Ring — or the Österreichring, as it was known before the Austrian energy drinks company bought it 2013 — has a long-established history of variable results.
The circuit has crowned a remarkable 21 different winners from just 33 grands prix. Only seven drivers have multiple wins, and only two drivers have won in Spielberg more than twice.
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Alain Prost was the first, winning in 1983, 1985 and 1986. Max Verstappen then clocked an impressive five victories, in 2018 and 2019, twice in 2021 and once more in 2023.
But even Verstappen has been unable to project total dominance at the circuit.
He’s won just once in the last four events — and each of those last four races has been won by different drivers from different teams.
Charles Leclerc, Verstappen, George Russell and Lando Norris won for Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, Mercedes and McLaren respectively between 2022 and 2025.
Cut it whatever way you want — there is no form guide at the Red Bull Ring.
The combination of the compact layout, which naturally shrinks margins, the straights linked by slow but open corners and the high-altitude mountainous setting has worked to provide unbeatable variability and reliable action for Formula 1.
With the 2026 season becoming increasingly difficult to read, you’d be brave to pick the outcome of this weekend’s race.
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FERRARI: IN FORM AND READY FOR AN UPGRADE
Ferrari arrives in Austria riding a wave of optimism, and not just because it won last time out with Lewis Hamilton.
After somewhat perversely celebrating that the FIA found it to have one of the three weakest internal combustion engines in the sport, Ferrari is bringing its first of two permissible power unit upgrades at this weekend’s race.
Ferrari knew almost instantly this season that it would need — and would be entitled to — engine concessions to catch Mercedes, and it’s been working in the background all year to ensure it would be ready to capitalise at the first opportunity.
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But engine technical director Enrico Gualtieri has cautioned that this weekend’s update isn’t going to totally change the game.
“The update we are bringing to Spielberg is a relatively minor one, and it’s the result of the work completed in recent weeks to transfer improvements from our development program to the track,” he said.
“In a championship as competitive as this one, it is unrealistic to expect a single update to transform the overall picture, especially under the current homologation and development constraints.”
He suggested an upgrade later this season or one of the two allowed for 2027 will comprise more significant hardware changes.
But the upgrade doesn’t have to change the world. Ferrari already proved that, in the right circumstances, it could win even with its old engine.
A kilowatt boost also doesn’t have to come exclusively from the engine architecture. Shell will reportedly bring an upgraded fuel to pair with the engine, which will pick up some of the slack.
Combined with a chassis that rival teams already agree produces the most downforce — hence its victory at downforce-sensitive Barcelona — and a little could go a long way.
Consider too that, on paper at least, Ferrari might be expected to be competing near the front this weekend anyway. The two key overtaking zones — at turn 3 and turn 4 — precede big traction events of the sort at which the Ferrari excels.
It’s also forecast to be hotter than in Spain, and Ferrari appears to have an effective advantage on tyre wear over the other frontrunners.
This weekend is being set up as an important test of Ferrari’s title bona fides, and conditions would appear to be favourable.
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MERCEDES: STILL THE SEASON’S BEST TEAM
For all the optimism around Ferrari, we shouldn’t forget that Mercedes has won six of the seven grands prix so far this season and leads both titles with Andrea Kimi Antonelli. With a 71-point constructors championship lead and a 41-point advantage in the drivers race, it’s not exactly panic stations.
But Mercedes is taking its Barcelona defeat seriously. The Spanish track has long been regarded as a benchmark circuit, and the fact it couldn’t win there demonstrated that its advantage this season perhaps isn’t as big as it looked at some of the preceding rounds at outlier circuits.
“Barcelona … offered a reality check,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said. “Others have gained ground quickly, and we need to respond.
“We are in a fight for both championships but must improve if we want to come out on top come the end of the season.”
The biggest question mark for Mercedes, though, is unreliability. The team has lost more points than other team — and any other engine manufacturer — thanks to two costly DNFs from the previous three grands prix.
Combined with several problems for Mercedes-powered runners elsewhere on the grid, and the negative trend is clear — and potentially dire in the face of a surging Ferrari.
Worse is that Austria has been a tough track for Mercedes in recent history.
After winning four in a row in 2014–17, it memorably suffered a double DNF the following season, after which the track became a weak circuit relative to the team’s otherwise dominant form elsewhere in the second half of the decade.
The team seemed to struggle with a combination of the thinner air and higher temperatures at the circuit, with its cars, particularly in recent years, tending to prefer cooler climes.
That cool-weather preference has so far appeared less pronounced in 2026, but the reliability question remains.
“We are not standing still in our efforts,” Wolff said. “We will bring a few updates to Austria this weekend with a focus on improving both performance and reliability.
“The margins are tight and will be even tighter around Spielberg given the length of the lap.
“We need to put together a better weekend than we have in recent races but if we can deliver to our maximum, then we know we can challenge for victory.”
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RED BULL RACING: HAPPY AT HOME
If Ferrari is the form team of the moment and Mercedes is the form team of the season, Red Bull Racing is the form team of the circuit, particularly with Max Verstappen behind the wheel.
Verstappen’s five wins are unparalleled on any configuration of this circuit, made all the sweeter for them being at the circuit owned by his employer.
Some of those wins have come despite prevailing relative form — as though thanks to a home-track advantage — and in a bid to keep that running, Red Bull Racing is bringing a hefty upgrade to the race.
It’s the team’s second major update of the season. Its previous big upgrade, brought to Miami, resulted in what at the time was by far its best qualifying result.
Before the Miami upgrade, Red Bull Racing was on average 1.2 seconds off the pace in qualifying. Since then, however, it’s been only 0.2 seconds adrift, a marked improvement, albeit a very close qualifying session in Monaco is bringing down that number.
But even that slender margin hasn’t brought the team quite to within striking distance. Results have been generally better but have remained frustratingly inconsistent.
Team boss Laurent Mekies cautioned, however, against expecting a step as large as Miami this weekend.
“There is no doubt that the Austrian package alone will not be enough,” he said, per Autosport. “We know we’ll have some further steps needed, but what is important is that, on that continuous closing-the-gap trajectory that we have been onto since post Japan, we continue to get closer, that we don’t talk anymore about 0.4 seconds [estimated deficit to the front] but hopefully about less.”
It’s unclear what exactly the major update package comprises, but reports suggest the car is still overweight, and Autosport has reported the team intends to reach this year’s minimum weight this weekend.
Even if it doesn’t make it, reducing weight is effectively free lap time, so any meaningful lightening will result in an automatically faster car this weekend.
Add into the mix the free lap time the team seems to get with Verstappen behind the wheel — set your own figure on that one, but it’s certainly not nothing — and Red Bull Racing suddenly presents as a more intimidating package at its home race.
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McLAREN: HAPPY HUNTING GROUND
Where does McLaren fit into the picture? The reigning title-winning team has been difficult to read this year.
Despite a somewhat underwhelming weekend in Barcelona — Norris rescued a podium after Antonelli’s retirement, with Oscar Piastri finishing a distant fifth after Leclerc’s retirement — there were some signs that it’s still on an improving trajectory.
In Miami, where it brought its first major upgrade, it ended up roughly on par with Mercedes. It struggled in chilly Canada and low-energy Monte Carlo, but at representative Spain, Norris was again close enough to Mercedes to be a threat. It’s just that Ferrari managed to jump both teams.
It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either.
That’s not a bad starting place for the Red Bull Ring, where Norris in particular has been reliably quick.
Spielberg is his highest-scoring circuit, with a career 108 points from three podiums and a victory.
He’s been outqualified by a teammate only once, and he’s never finished behind a teammate in a grand prix when he’s seen the chequered flag.
That sizzling run of form culminated in a dominant pole by 0.521 seconds last year and an assured victory, even if Piastri pushed him all the to the finish line.
McLaren in general has tended to perform well at this circuit — Piastri has a couple of podium finishes in Austria as well — leaving it optimistic that it could be in the fight.
There’ll be focus on some minor upgrades this weekend given McLaren’s development pipeline stumbled over a new front wing brought to Miami that raced for the first time in Spain owing to correlation issues.
Of further interest, though, is what the team is describing as an “experimental” rear wing to be used during Friday practice. It’s widely expected to be McLaren’s take on the rotating rear wing first deployed by Ferrari and since used by Red Bull Racing, but it isn’t expected to race with it for several more grands prix.
Fast slipping out of the title fight, particularly in light of Ferrari’s big gains, a big result at a friendly circuit wouldn’t go astray — particularly ahead of the team and Norris’s home race in Silverstone next weekend.
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THE CURVE BALLS: ALTITUDE SICKNESS
The Red Bull Racing, set among the Alps, sits at an altitude of 678 metres above sea level — high enough to have an appreciable effect on the cars.
The air is around 7.25 per cent thinner at the Red Bull Ring, and the forecast top temperature of 33°C exacerbates the air scarcity.
Altitude differences used to mean much more in the era of naturally aspirated engines, which produced less power — and ran hotter — with less air being taken in.
That problem was lessened with the reintroduction of turbochargers, which took on additional workload to keep up engine air pressure.
That puts a focus on turbo performance — and there are some key differences in turbocharger design this year.
Ferrari’s small turbo, for example, will have less lag in the thinner air than the larger turbos used by other teams, which could be a powerful weapon out of the corners this weekend. However, that comes at the expense of the turbo potentially maxing out before the end of the straights when larger units could keep pressing on.
That we’re talking about turbo lag at all, though, is because of this year’s removal of the MGU-H, the hybrid device that kept the turbo spooled up in 2014–25.
Just as is the case at the starts this year, the removal of the MGU-H has made the engine less refined and clunkier — though that means we’ll see more differences between engines.
Teams can choose to use the hybrid motor to help fill in the turbo lag out of the corners, but that would cost it power at the end of the straights, creating an interesting strategic question.
Then there’s the cooling constraints in the thinner air, which will be exacerbated by the high forecast temperature this weekend — hot enough for the FIA to declare a heat hazard this weekend, which requires drivers to either use their cooling vests or carry the weight of a cooling system in ballast.
As for the car, cooling apertures will have to be opened, which comes at the cost of less downforce and more drag.
These are just some of the reasons the Austrian Grand Prix is one of the widest open races on the calendar.
Good luck picking the winner.