Lando Norris won the Austrian Grand Prix from pole position in a McLaren one-two on Sunday after fending off championship-leading team mate Oscar Piastri in an early wheel-to-wheel duel and then withstanding intense pressure to the end.
The Briton’s third victory of the season cut Australian Piastri’s Formula One lead from 22 to 15 points after 11 of 24 rounds, with the two McLaren drivers locked in an increasingly private title battle.
Charles Leclerc completed the podium for Ferrari with teammate Lewis Hamilton fourth and George Russell, last year’s winner in Austria, fifth for Mercedes.
Red Bull’s four-time world champion Max Verstappen suffered his first retirement of the season, in his team’s home race, after a first-lap collision with Mercedes’s Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli.
The Dutch driver stayed third overall but is now 61 points behind Piastri in the championship standings.
“Tricky, hot, tiring,” said Norris after stepping out of the car at the finish of the 70-lap race on a sweltering Sunday. “A lot of stress but a lot of fun. A nice battle, so well done to Oscar.
“Hopefully it was a nice one for everyone to watch, but inside the car it was tough, especially when he was in DRS (drag reduction range).” Piastri, who seized second place from Leclerc after an aborted first start, set the fastest lap of the race.
He took the lead momentarily on lap 11 in an intense battle, but Norris grabbed it straight back in a duel that risked a repeat of the collision between the pair at the previous race in Canada.
Norris caused that one, and came away empty-handed, but this time it was Piastri who had the McLaren bosses shifting uneasily on the pitwall when he locked up with a puff of smoke on lap 20 while seeking to sneak through on the inside.
New Zealander Liam Lawson took a career-best finish in sixth for Racing Bulls with Fernando Alonso seventh for Aston Martin — the Spaniard finishing ahead of Sauber’s Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.
The points were Bortoleto’s first in F1 and to make it even sweeter, Sauber took a double points finish, with Nico Hulkenberg finishing ninth. Hulkenberg was the first Sauber driver since Valtteri Bottas in 2022 to score in three races in a row.
Esteban Ocon took the final point for Haas.
McLaren are 207 points clear of Ferrari, who moved back up to second in the absence of team boss Fred Vasseur, who had to return home for personal reasons, in the constructors’ championship.
