F1 - Austrian GP

It was another great race in the 2025 Formula One season this weekend at the Red Bull Ring, with lots of talking points and big implications for the championship battle! Let's dive in to what happened this weekend.

Performances

McLaren - another fantastic result for the team with a 1-2. Their car is just so dominant, both drivers were fighting each other for the lead and they were still around about 19 seconds clear of anyone else! The battle in the opening laps between the two teammates was easily my favourite part of the weekend, and some of the best racing we've seen this season. Well done to both drivers on keeping the racing fair. Lando needed a weekend like this after Canada's disaster and Oscar did damage limitation after not being able to get pole. The championship has really tightened between those two again - just 15 points now - it's looking really good for a great teammate battle for the title! And thank you McLaren for allowing them to race as well!

Ferrari - much better weekend. The pace was better and they were clearly 2nd fastest behind the McLarens with a 3-4 result. Another good podium from Charles and Lewis had his best race result for Ferrari (not counting Sprints). Good step in the right direction. Not much else to say - they were too fast for the rest of the pack but too slow to fight McLaren.

Mercedes - once again no pace in hot temperatures, it's a real problem for them this season. To finish about 30 seconds off of the Ferraris in P5 shows how slow the car was. And Kimi's incident with Max was just a classic rookie miscalculation - a three place grid penalty for the next race is fair enough.

Red Bull - this weekend couldn't have gone worse for them at their home race and circuit. Max out on lap one through no fault of his own and is now 61 points off the lead of the championship in a car that is not competitive. Massive blow to his title hopes. And Yuki finishing last. Really really bad weekend that proves that the main problem is the car not the driver! Surely after Gasly, Albon, Perez, Lawson and now Tsunoda all failing it's clear to see???

Aston Martin - excellent race from Fernando to pull off the one stop and get some good points in P7. Not much else he could have done apart from maybe getting past Lawson so well done. Stroll was Stroll again.

Sauber - DOUBLE POINTS!!!! It feels like it's been ages since that happened! Amazing Quali from Bortoleto and a composed drive to get his first points in F1. And Nico Hulkenberg again... this guy keeps on impressing this season. P20 - P9 is an amazing drive. Their upgrades have really worked this season and it looks like all the new staff they've bought in are already improving the team greatly, even before they change to Audi!

Haas - race pace was much better this weekend and Ocon did well to score a point from P17. They need to sort out their bad quali pace though.

Racing Bulls - Lawson had a great quali and a fantastic drive to score his best result so far in F1 with P6! Very good performance from him and some good points in RB's fight for P6 in the WCC. It feels like the first weekend all season where he's outperformed Hadjar.

Williams - disaster weekend for them. Carlos didn't even start the race because of mechanical issues and Albon had to retire early because of them too! They've really had a bad few races and reliability seems to be a recurring issue for them.

Alpine - don't even get me started with this team. Last in the WCC is shocking and the car is a complete mess. Both drivers had no pace, and what was Franco doing when he tried to force Piastri off????

Race rating - 9/10 - very enjoyable race with a lot of action. Austria always provides some of the best wheel to wheel action on the calendar.

Team radio of the race - broadcast didn't pick this one up but Oscar basically said on the cooldown lap : "Alpine still manages to find a way to f**k me over all these years later" 😭😭😭😭

Driver of the race - pretty tough one this weekend, a lot of good performances! Norris, Hulkenberg and Lawson all deserve shout outs. But I'll give it to Bortoleto this weekend. Great drive to get his first points in F1 finally! Hopefully he can start to show his talent more regularly now.

News

I don't normally do these but obviously there was big news in the week before the race that confirms that Mercedes are talking to Max about 2026 and honestly... I would feel bad for Kimi but it's kind of a no brainer. Max is an undeniable F1 great at this point already and a Max - George driver pairing could easily win the constructors championship with a good car. And imagine the fireworks! It's been a while since we had a really heated teammate rivalry for the championship and that pairing would easily deliver considering their past history! It would be cinema. They could also replace George with Max which would be interesting... but honestly why would you give up George? He's proven to be one of the best drivers on the grid at this point. The whole situation is weird. Toto has this fixation on signing Max and if we're being honest basically any other team would be scrambling to sign George if they let him go. Either way it looks to be interesting. And obviously Red Bull would be basically screwed for at least a few years if this happened because the whole team is built around one driver. Either way the silly season should be fun again this year!

Next weekend - British GP at the awesome Silverstone Circuit, one of my personal favourite tracks on the calendar! The history is undeniable - it hosted the very first world championship race all the way back in 1950. The long sweeping corners always provide fantastic racing and the atmosphere is one of the best on the calendar. Some great past races have been: 1987 (superb battle between Mansell and Piquet), 1995 (Hill and Schumacher colliding with Herbert winning), 2008 (one of the most masterful drives from Lewis!), 2020 (the drama at the end with the tyre failures), 2022 (amazing race and Carlos's first win, probably my favourite race of the 2022 and onward regulations), 2024 (biased but that Lewis win was amazing).

ALSO LEWIS HASN'T FINISHED OFF THE PODIUM HERE SINCE 2014 FERRARI IF YOU MESS UP LEWIS'S PODIUM STREAK AT SILVERSTONE!!!!!!! I WILL BE FURIOUS!!!!!!