Practice report
Formula 1 Austrian GP
F1 Austrian GP: George Russell leads Mercedes 1-2 in hot FP3
Mercedes has done little to shrug off its favourite status at Formula 1's Austrian Grand Prix as Russell topped third free practice on Saturday
Filip Cleeren
Published: Jun 27, 2026, 11:45 AM
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George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images
Mercedes driver George Russell has denied his team-mate and Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli a clean sweep of Austrian GP practice sessions, with Russell pipping the Italian in final practice as Lewis Hamilton impressed for Ferrari.
Mercedes was handed its first grand prix defeat of 2026 by Hamilton and Ferrari in Barcelona, while McLaren looked like it could pose the strongest challenge to the Silver Arrows at a hot Red Bull Ring on Friday. But in Saturday afternoon's final practice ahead of qualifying, Mercedes showed few signs of its one-lap advantage disappearing as Russell pipped Antonelli in the final minutes of the session.
After a sluggish start to proceedings in the oppressive Styrian heat, with temperatures again easily clearing 30C, reigning world champion Lando Norris got the qualifying sims underway with a 1m07.832s effort after 15 minutes. That was comfortably quickest at that stage, with Hamilton and Russell both unable to touch Norris' benchmark early on.
Norris' McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri fared better, and was just half a tenth off the Briton until championship leader Antonelli put Mercedes on top with a 1m07.533s lap. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc soon demoted Russell to go second, just 0.155s off Antonelli's benchmark.
Max Verstappen had gone fourth in the heavily upgraded Red Bull RB22, which meant the top four teams were all covered by just over three tenths at the halfway mark of the session, with just the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar missing from that top eight battle.
Russell improved to get within 0.017s of Antonelli, offering a brief glimpse of a tight intra-Mercedes battle later on, until Antonelli retaliated with a huge 1m07.134s lap to put more daylight in between the pair. In fairness to Russell, he reported "really bad straight-line braking on the front axle" into Turn 3, which exaggerated the gap to the Italian teenager.
Lewis Hamilton was the fastest non-Mercedes driver in the session
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
Heading into the last round of qualifying sims in the final 15 minutes, Antonelli couldn't improve on his chart-topping time, which left the door open for Hamilton to take second just 0.077s in arrears, ahead of a sliding Russell, Norris and Verstappen. Leclerc was missing from that battle after locking up the fronts at Turn 3, aborting his first flyer and then not improving on his damaged tyres.
In the dying minutes of the session Russell finally set a 1m17.096s to go top, 0.038s ahead of Antonelli to which the Italian was unable to respond, peeling into the pitlane after shipping time in the first two sectors.
Hamilton took third with a 1m07.211s, just over a tenth behind, to set up an intriguing qualifying session. McLaren didn't look as strong as it did on Friday, as Piastri and Norris settled for fourth and fifth, just under three tenths adrift, and narrowly holding off sixth-placed Verstappen.
While Hamilton managed to make significant improvements after Ferrari was left wanting for grip on Friday, Leclerc fared little better as he was down in seventh, 0.356s off Russell.
There was a huge, half-second gap to eighth-placed Hadjar, who complained of a tough-to-drive Red Bull as he locked up repeatedly in Turns 1 and 3.
In the midfield battle, Racing Bulls cut an impressive figure with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad both making it into the top 10. The pair is going into qualifying with a slight edge on Alpine's Pierre Gasly, while Audi also looks like a points contender.
At the bottom of the order there were no miracles for Aston Martin, as Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll propped up the timesheets well behind Haas, Williams and Cadillac.
F1 Austrian GP: FP3 results
All Stats
Cla Driver # Chassis Engine Laps Time Interval Tyres km/h 1 G. Russell Mercedes 63
Mercedes Mercedes 19
1'07.096
S 232.109 2
A. Kimi Antonelli Mercedes
12 
Mercedes Mercedes 17
+0.038
1'07.134
0.038 S 231.977 3 L. Hamilton Ferrari 44
Ferrari Ferrari 22
+0.115
1'07.211
0.077 S 231.712 4 O. Piastri McLaren 81
McLaren Mercedes 17
+0.248
1'07.344
0.133 S 231.254 5 L. Norris McLaren 1
McLaren Mercedes 20
+0.264
1'07.360
0.016 S 231.199 6 M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing 3
Red Bull Red Bull 16
+0.273
1'07.369
0.009 S 231.168 7 C. Leclerc Ferrari 16
Ferrari Ferrari 24
+0.356
1'07.452
0.083 S 230.884 8 I. Hadjar Red Bull Racing 6
Red Bull Red Bull 27
+0.816
1'07.912
0.460 S 229.320 9 L. Lawson Racing Bulls 30
RB Red Bull 21
+0.935
1'08.031
0.119 S 228.919 10 A. Lindblad Racing Bulls 41
RB Red Bull 24
+1.013
1'08.109
0.078 S 228.657 11 P. Gasly Alpine 10
Alpine Mercedes 16
+1.097
1'08.193
0.084 S 228.375 12 N. Hulkenberg Audi 27
Audi Audi 22
+1.207
1'08.303
0.110 S 228.007 13 G. Bortoleto Audi 5
Audi Audi 22
+1.215
1'08.311
0.008 S 227.980 14 F. Colapinto Alpine 43
Alpine Mercedes 18
+1.298
1'08.394
0.083 S 227.704 15 O. Bearman Haas F1 Team 87
Haas Ferrari 19
+1.433
1'08.529
0.135 S 227.255 16 E. Ocon Haas F1 Team 31
Haas Ferrari 15
+1.611
1'08.707
0.178 S 226.666 17 C. Sainz Williams 55
Williams Mercedes 27
+1.747
1'08.843
0.136 S 226.219 18 A. Albon Williams 23
Williams Mercedes 25
+1.896
1'08.992
0.149 S 225.730 19 S. Perez Cadillac F1 Team 11
Cadillac Ferrari 29
+2.436
1'09.532
0.540 S 223.977 20 V. Bottas Cadillac F1 Team 77
Cadillac Ferrari 24
+2.644
1'09.740
0.208 S 223.309 21 F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing 14
Aston Martin Honda 21
+3.325
1'10.421
0.681 S 221.149 22 L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing 18
Aston Martin Honda 19
+3.471
1'10.567
0.146 S 220.692 View full results
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