Russell holds off Verstappen to win Austrian Grand Prix at Spielberg

George Russell held off Max Verstappen over the final laps at the Red Bull Ring to win the Austrian Grand Prix by 1.611 seconds, turning pole position into his seventh career Formula 1 victory. The Mercedes driver’s second win of the 2026 season came after 112 days without a triumph, and it moved him back to second in the Drivers’ Championship while Kimi Antonelli’s lead was cut to 40 points.

In hot conditions at the 4.326km circuit in Spielberg, Russell kept control of a race that had been shaped by a tense qualifying session as much as by Sunday’s closing stages. Verstappen crashed out of Q3 at Turn 9, triggering yellow flags and leaving Russell to beat Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to pole. That Saturday mistake forced Red Bull to chase from behind, and by race day Verstappen had recovered enough to make the finish a straight fight with Russell.

Antonelli took third, 1.986 seconds behind Russell, after a slightly messy start that left him under pressure late on. Oscar Piastri finished fourth, Hamilton fifth, Isack Hadjar sixth, Lando Norris seventh and Leclerc eighth. Mercedes reached 132 Formula 1 race wins.

The weekend had already hinted at how close the front-running picture could be. Antonelli led Russell by 0.040 seconds in FP1. Russell delivered that execution when it counted, managing the closing stages against Verstappen’s attack without giving the race away in the traffic and heat that often punish small errors at Spielberg.

The Red Bull Ring added its own weight to the result. The circuit was reworked over the winter of 1995-96, opened as the A1-Ring in 1996 and first hosted Formula 1 in 1997, when Jacques Villeneuve won the track’s first Grand Prix.