Winners and losers from Austrian GP F1 qualifying 2026

Confusion over George Russell's pole-winning lap, and whether it had been set under double-waved yellow flags or not, dominated the headlines from Austria qualifying, which makes a tour through the rest of the order even more valuable.

Max Verstappen's crash, the team that joined the top four in Q3, surprise finishes for McLaren and some 'disasterclasses' at the back of the order mean there's plenty to analyse. Here we go.

Winner: George Russell (1st)

The performance picture looked bleak for Russell at several points in this weekend, across practice and the first two qualifying segments, and it took an undeniable stroke of luck for him to find himself with a two-car buffer to Kimi Antonelli.

Russell was fortunate with the sequence of marshal and race direction decisions about how to treat Max Verstappen's accident up ahead. But to say he skated by on pure luck would be incorrect - it was more that Russell was 'extraordinarily lucky to avoid being unlucky', because the vast majority of the time a situation like this would end with him being denied his pole lap.

He still had to make the lap itself, and it was a marked improvement on the rest of the weekend, Russell already on course to beat Antonelli even before the latter rolled out.

What did Russell change to make that happen? A bit of wing angle, a bit of out-lap strategy, he said.

"But it's one of those that, when you nail Turn 1 and you go through fast but the car doesn't slide, it keeps the temperatures a little bit down, so your tyres are cooler approaching the next turn, then you have more grip, you go through there faster and the tyres are cooler once again.

"It's this sort of upward spiral - and it just clicked." - Valentin Khorounzhiy

Loser: Max Verstappen (5th)

Even though this turned out to be a pretty decent result in the grand scheme of things, considering Red Bull’s overall wayward form so far in 2026, this has to go down as a loss against Verstappen’s name personally.

There was no minor wing flap adjustment, tyre temperature issue or sudden gust of wind that Verstappen could point towards to explain this crash away. He simply carried too much speed into Turn 9 trying to chase that 0.061s gap to Antonelli after the first runs in Q3.

Verstappen knew that was where he was giving away the lap time, so was pushing more - “not a stupid amount more”, but enough to break traction and fire his heavily upgraded Red Bull into the barrier.

“Normally you can catch an oversteer,” he said, “but this was not controllable at all, unfortunately.”

Well, certainly not at the speed he attempted to carry into that corner!

This has to go down as a needless error on Verstappen’s part - similar to what we saw from Leclerc in Barcelona qualifying, when he was caught out while chasing Hamilton’s superior speed through Turn 4.

The subsequent yellow flag, and Antonelli’s overreaction to it, limited the damage for Verstappen in terms of the final classification here, but it was still an uncharacteristic error on his part.

It’s fair to say up until that point, he was driving the wheels off the car and looking an unlikely contender for pole. - Ben Anderson

Winner: Ferrari (2nd & 3rd)

After a fairly abject Friday, when Ferrari appeared to be running that new, upgraded power unit in a detuned state but the drivers were also struggling with what Charles Leclerc called “an open balance” (meaning too much four-wheel sliding rather than a dominant imbalance on one axle), Lewis Hamilton ’s pace in final practice - just 0.115s off the pace - was more in line with what we were expecting to see after Barcelona.

Ferrari remained in the mix during the early stages of qualifying, but suddenly behind the McLarens again, then in Q3 it all came together - denied a 1-2 on the grid only by Russell’s stonking final lap and quick thinking through Turn 9’s single yellow zone after Verstappen's shunt.

Without Antonelli mistakenly backing off for what he thought was a double yellow zone, that 2-3 result would have likely been a 3-4, but the McLarens were legitimately vanquished anyway and Verstappen crashed trying to keep up with the pace, so this has to go down as a strong result for Ferrari.

The car clearly doesn’t have the outright pace of the Mercedes here, but a long, hot race could be a very different story to the single lap blitzes we’ve mostly seen so far. Ferrari will surely feel, from these grid positions, there’s at least a chance to fight for victory again. - BA

Loser: Kimi Antonelli (4th)

Antonelli might not have had the pace to beat that stonking final lap from his Mercedes team-mate Russell, but he certainly had the pace for the front row had he not misjudged the yellow flags for Verstappen's crash.

The one upside for Antonelli is how strong things were looking for him prior to Q3. But he’ll now have three cars to pass ahead of him if he’s to get back to winning ways after his Barcelona frustration.

Antonelli has made very few major errors in a brilliant second season, but this might be the most significant so far. - Josh Suttill

Loser: McLaren (6th & 7th)

To finish sixth and seventh in qualifying is surprising given how strong McLaren had been all weekend, a car in the top four in every session and in the top two in all but FP3, leading into Q3.

Lando Norris, narrowly ahead in sixth, said the team was “probably expecting a little bit more just from a positions point of view, but [it's] just how close it was”.

He agreed with Oscar Piastri’s view that only a “dream lap” that only “comes around every few years” would have launched the pair further forward.

The fact that they have been so close to each other in terms of times set this weekend and in Q3 shows they are likely extracting the maximum out of the package, and that free practice flattered the MCL40. - Jack Benyon

Loser: Williams (17th and 18th)

Williams was caught off guard by how much it struggled on Friday in Austria and while things improved on Saturday, even a “full beans” lap for Carlos Sainz wasn’t enough for Q2.

“No, what I gained on entry, I lost on exit I think,” Sainz said when it was put to him his slide out of the final corner cost him a place in Q2.

“I went a bit full beans there in that lap and it was honestly a really good lap, on the limit everywhere and the only proper good lap I've done all weekend because I've been struggling a lot with the balance and with the car.

“Unfortunately, we just don't have the pace.”

Team-mate Alex Albon couldn’t get that close, two and a half tenths adrift of Sainz: “The car's still on the edge every lap around here," Albon added. “We seem to get tipped over if we have a small difference in balance.”

Williams hasn’t scored points in Austria since 2017 and that doesn’t look likely to change on Sunday after a first double Q1 exit since China. - JS

Winner: Racing Bulls (9th & 10th)

They might have propped up the top 10, but given Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren locked out the top eight, Racing Bulls’ drivers convincingly led the midfield with their double Q3 appearance.

They were flattered to beat Verstappen in Q2 after the latter’s tyre saving strategy, but worked hard to solve brake issues earlier in the weekend and appeared to avoid the (mostly Turn 3) issues power-unit manufacturer Red Bull had suffered with its works’ team.

A job well done, but the team’s form has fluctuated this season from qualifying to the race at times, which means the looming Alpine of Pierre Gasly and its usually impressive race pace means Lawson and the team are “definitely concerned”. - JB

Loser: Cadillac (19th and 20th)

Aston Martin Honda hasn’t upgraded its car while every other team has, so its 21st and 22nd is somewhat expected.

Fernando Alonso, in particular, looked to extract the (limited) potential of the car, and was talking up how the team has made “huge steps on drivability, on gearbox, downshift, upshift, and energy consistency” since FP1.

But Cadillac, with its sizeable upgrade package this weekend, would have hoped for a bit more from its qualifying, as it ended up seven tenths away from Q2.

“In general, I think we seem to be finding not as big steps as we would like, because the next position was still four tenths from us in such a small track, the gap was quite large,” Sergio Perez said.

Valtteri Bottas felt there was “a bit more in it today” as he ended “too close” to Perez on his final lap.

Team boss Graeme Lowdon thinks Cadillac's Friday technical issues “probably cost us a lot of laptime as we couldn’t really optimise preparation for qualifying”.

The team has instead focused on race pace, where it’s hoping to make a step in tyre degradation, having struggled in a baking Barcelona GP last time out. - JS