{"id":762784,"date":"2026-06-27T01:59:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762784\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T01:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:59:15","slug":"f1-news-2026-mercedes-tops-austria-practice-mclarens-not-far-behind-oscar-piastri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762784\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news 2026: Mercedes tops Austria practice; McLarens not far behind; Oscar Piastri"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Formula 1<\/a> title race is turning into the ultimate battle of youth against experience.<\/p>\n

On one side, Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, who at 41 just became F1\u2019s oldest race winner since 1970. An eighth world title would make him the oldest champion since 1957.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri during practice in Austria.\u00a0AP Photo\/Darko Bandic<\/p>\n

On the other, Kimi Antonelli<\/a>, the 19-year-old Italian who leads the standings, on course to be the youngest ever to take the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here before. I know what I have to do, and there\u2019s a long way to go,\u201d Hamilton said ahead of this weekend\u2019s Austrian Grand Prix<\/a>, set to take place as a \u201cheat hazard\u201d race with hot weather baking Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a real battle on our hands, and it\u2019s going to take everyone for the rest of the year to even come close to competing with (Mercedes), but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge was clear in practice.<\/p>\n

Antonelli was fastest in both sessions, beating George Russell<\/a> by 0.04 of a second in a Mercedes<\/a> one-two in the first. The second session saw Antonelli head the McLarens<\/a> of Oscar Piastri<\/a> and Lando Norris <\/a>by .237 and .325 respectively. Hamilton was fifth in both sessions.<\/p>\n

It was a rough day for Cadillac as Sergio Perez stopped on the track in both sessions and Valtteri Bottas had a small fire underneath his car.<\/p>\n

As track temperatures pushed past 60C, Russell said the tyres were \u201cburning out there and going through hell\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to find a sweet spot here at all,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

\u201cI think McLaren were really good straight out of the blocks. They were flying in FP1 and everyone seemed to have problems \u2013 Lando was in the garage, Lewis and Max too, so maybe that flattered us, but I think McLaren\u2019s pace is a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri said his team had \u201ca pretty good day\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still a step behind Mercedes, or Kimi at least, as we expected, but we tried a few things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done our homework and it\u2019s been pretty good. Kimi\u2019s second lap on the softs was impressive. We need to learn a few things from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s win at Barcelona two weeks ago<\/a>, his first with Ferrari after a year and a half of frustration, brought together smart strategy, Mercedes\u2019 reliability issues and innovation at Ferrari with key car parts that rivals have rushed to copy. Ferrari brought an upgraded engine to Austria, too.<\/p>\n

Antonelli\u2019s teammate Russell said he was surprised how fast Ferrari was developing its car under F1\u2019s strict spending rules but \u201cat the end of the day, we\u2019re still the team to beat. So this will be another good weekend to see if Ferrari are still on that good form or if that was a one-off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andrea<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s win just showed that anyone \u201cwriting him off\u201d was wrong, said Russell, his teammate at Mercedes in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, he is a big threat. Ferrari are a huge threat. Kimi is still very much the driver out front and is performing really incredibly and consistently,\u201d Russell said. \u201cFerrari feel like they\u2019re coming and Lewis is at the forefront of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonelli will want a better race in Austria this year than last.<\/p>\n

Antonelli smashed into Max Verstappen, ending the race for both. Verstappen accepted Antonelli\u2019s apology, saying \u201cevery driver has made a mistake like that\u201d \u2014 though the points he lost that day arguably ended up costing him the title.<\/p>\n

It was part of a disastrous run of summer results at European tracks for Antonelli, who admitted he felt overwhelmed by frustration. After Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff repeatedly called Antonelli\u2019s performance \u201cunderwhelming\u201d at his home Italian Grand Prix, it prompted speculation about his future. Then came the turnaround.<\/p>\n

Antonelli used Wolff\u2019s criticism as \u201cfuel to do even better\u201d and he did, scoring more points in the final eight rounds of the season than he had in the previous 16. That laid the foundations for his championship-leading breakout season in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Formula 1 title race is turning into the ultimate battle of youth against experience. On one side,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-762784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}