Lando Norris led a McLaren 1-2 in the 2025 Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix despite constant pressure from team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Poleman Norris had to get defensive immediately to protect his lead from a fast-starting Piastri on the first lap, before the safety car was deployed after a race-ending collision between Mercedes’s Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen at the Turn 3 hairpin.
Antonelli misjudged his braking on the inside line, sailed past the apex and clattered the Red Bull.
After the race resumed, Piastri hounded his team-mate and made several attempts to pass, but Norris stood firm until his first pitstop on lap 20 of 70.
Piastri extended his own first stint by another four laps and emerged from the pits with a 5.5s deficit to the lead McLaren.
He closed the gap back down to under one second as the McLarens navigated traffic in the closing laps, but Norris held on for his third win of the season.
Charles Leclerc started on the front row but lost position to Piastri at Turn 1 and was told to lift and coast by Ferrari from very early on. He ended up third, 19.8 seconds behind the winning McLaren.
Williams suffered a double retirement while Red Bull failed to score points for the first time since the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix - a double DNF - as Verstappen was out and Yuki Tsunoda only finished 15th.
McLaren’s near misses
There were a couple of moments that threatened McLaren’s 1-2 finish in Austria with Piastri locking up and almost hitting his team-mate and Franco Colapinto clumsily running Piastri wide late in the race while being lapped.
At the start, Norris led away from pole position while Piastri jumped Leclerc.
The Australian attempted to pry the lead off Norris at Turn 3 on the opening lap, but Norris held on before the safety car was deployed.
Knowing the leader would gain strategic priority for the first round of pitstops, Piastri continued to push Norris for the lead after the restart.
On lap 11, Piastri passed Norris at Turn 3 but Norris regained it at Turn 4, defending down the hill and retaining it.
Then came a close call on lap 20 when Piastri locked up at Turn 4, almost hitting Norris. Piastri was told not to repeat such a “marginal” move.
Norris pitted from medium for hards at the end of the lap while Piastri was brought in on lap 24 for the same. Both stops lasted more than three seconds due to slow left-front swaps.
The second pitstops came on laps 53 and 54, with Norris again coming in first. This time the stops lasted 2.5s and two seconds, respectively.
Piastri encountered duelling backmarkers Yuki Tsunoda and Colapinto as he left the pits and, seemingly unaware that he was being blue-flagged, Colapinto pushed Piastri wide on the run down to Turn 4 - copping a five-second time penalty for forcing the McLaren off the track.
Piastri brushed that setback off and continued to try and reel Norris in, but as the gap ebbed and flowed through the traffic, Norris upped his own pace in clear air and made sure Piastri never got back within DRS range in the closing laps.
Red Bull’s streak ends
Verstappen was taken out by Antonelli on the opening lap, and remaining Red Bull driver Tsunoda failed to score the team any points at the circuit the team effectively owns.
The Japanese driver had a close call on lap 15 when he lunged on the inside of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and made contact with the Canadian.
But it was on lap 31 when Tsunoda’s race unravelled, as he tapped Colapinto into a spin at Turn 4, losing his front wing and taking a 10-second penalty - which eliminated even a remote chance of finishing in the top 10.
Red Bull’s 77-race-long streak of points-scoring weekends from Bahrain 2022 to Canada 2025 therefore ended. Of those 2,370 points, Verstappen scored 1,621 - or 68.4%.
That streak was the second-longest points-scoring streak in world championship history, only Ferrari having bettered it with 81 from Germany 2010 to Singapore 2014.
Williams suffered a double retirement for the second time this season. Carlos Sainz couldn’t get away from the grid on the formation lap but eventually did get going and made it to the end of the pitlane for the race start, but his brakes went up in flames and he had to be rolled back into the garage.
Alex Albon broke through Pierre Gasly’s DRS train and was surely on for points but the Thai driver retired on lap 17 with a mysterious issue that Williams says it is investigating.
How the points were scored
Lewis Hamiton finished fourth in something of a lonely race for Ferrari, punctuated only by an innocuous off-track moment on lap 48 and a disagreement with the team over pitting a second time on lap 51.
That second pitstop essentially took Hamilton out of an outside shot at the podium - if a safety car emerged - and he finished just over nine seconds behind the sister Ferrari of Leclerc.
The seven-time champion enjoyed some lap-one battling with former Mercedes team-mate George Russell, before Russell settled in behind the Ferrari and dropped back into a lonely race to fifth.
Liam Lawson lost a couple of places at the start but extended his opening stint, executing a one-stop strategy and finishing sixth for Racing Bulls.
Fernando Alonso also pulled off a one-stop race to secure a very useful seventh place for Aston Martin.
Sauber starred with its first double-points score since Mexico 2018. Gabriel Bortoleto finished just 0.515s behind his manager Alonso, who held off a late charge for that seventh-place finish. The veteran was seen congratulating the rookie in parc ferme.
Last-place qualifier Nico Hulkenberg finished ninth behind Bortoleto, the pair (on differing strategies) of Sauber team-mates having been swapped before the halfway point.
Esteban Ocon took the final point for Haas on a medium-hard-hard strategy with team-mate Ollie Bearman missing out in 11th having started the race on soft tyres.
Isack Hadjar took a gamble by pitting during the early safety car but that guaranteed a two-stop strategy and took him out of the points.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly struggled on his way to 13th as he complained of a lack of grip. His soft-hard-medium strategy not paying off.
Results
1 Lando Norris (McLaren)
2 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
3 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
4 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
5 George Russell (Mercedes)
6 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
7 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
8 Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
9 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
10 Esteban Ocon (Haas)
11 Ollie Bearman (Haas)
12 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
13 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
14 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
15 Franco Colapinto (Alpine)
16 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)
DNF Alex Albon (Williams)
DNF Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
DNF Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
DNF Carlos Sainz (Williams)
