Austrian GP Preview

 Red Bull Firm Favorites as Mercedes and Aston Martin Continue the Chase. Ferrari Hoping to Join the Party with A Raft of Upgrades

 

Red Bull head into their home race as clear favorites, courtesy of a flawless season that has seen them secure their 100th Grand Prix win recently in Canada. While the drivers' fortunes differ starkly, with Verstappen having led every lap three races in a row and Perez missing out on Q3 for each of the three races, everything points towards another dominant weekend by the defending champions. The only point of interest will be whether Perez can pose a challenge to his teammate and interrupt his current streak of four consecutive victories.

 

While Red Bull is comfortably ahead, the chasing pack is as tight as it gets. Three teams have a chance to claim any scraps left by the Red Bulls. The Mercedes and Aston Martins, particularly Fernando Alonso, seem to be neck and neck as they continue to get to grips with their new packages that have seen them reduce the relative gap to Verstappen at the front. Ferrari, on the other hand, come in with a new set of upgrades as they look to build off a solid weekend in Canada that saw them execute a decent strategy to sit pretty just outside the podium places having started 10th and 11th.

 

Alpine and McLaren are holding fort in the midfield just behind the top four teams, but with McLaren introducing their much-taunted upgrade package a race early with Lando, it will be interesting to see if they can take significant steps towards catching up with the top four teams. However, the sprint weekend format leaves them with only one practice session to try to understand the package before going into qualifying Friday afternoon.

 

Further down the field, Williams will have both cars running the new upgrade package and expectations will be high after Alex Albon put in a valiant drive in Canada to see him secure P7, earning a lot of praise from his former boss at Red Bull Christian Horner. His rookie teammate Logan Sargent will be looking to get a strong weekend following a run of poor results in Monaco and Spain, and then an unfortunate early retirement in Canada.

 

With only the second sprint weekend this season and a forecast of mixed conditions through Friday and Saturday, it will be interesting to see which teams and drivers will make the most of the circumstances and come out of Austria with a good haul of points.