(Motorsport-Total.com) – What before the weekend still sounded like a megalomaniac question developed into one of the big discussion topics on race Sunday in Spielberg: Could Max Verstappen have won the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix? Because Red Bull’s new update package seems to have fully hit the mark.
Read more Mega-Pace: Should Max Verstappen have won in Austria?
With the second major update of the season after Miami, Red Bull traveled to the home race in Spielberg to further reduce the gap to the front. According to data, the first bigger package after the catastrophic season start had already brought about seven tenths of a second. Nevertheless, the successful team was still 0.46 seconds per lap behind the front in Barcelona.
In Spielberg, however, this gap seemed to have almost completely disappeared. After a crash in qualifying, Verstappen had to start the race from fifth place, but before the accident, his sector times indicated that Red Bull could have beaten Ferrari in qualifying.
In the race, it became clear after just a few laps that the RB21 was superior to the Scuderia – and Mercedes was suddenly within reach as well.
Red Bull speaks of a “huge step forward”
So much so that the question arises whether a different strategy could even have made victory possible. Team principal Laurent Mekies, however, did not want to commit to this after the race. “The pleasing thing is that the car is much faster,” explained the Frenchman.
“It is the first time that we were able to show a performance with which we could actually fight for the win. Therefore, second place is our best result so far, but of course there remains some frustration when you finish right behind the winner. Nevertheless, this is a huge step forward.”
Whether more was actually possible strategically, Mekies left open. “That’s hard to say. We will analyze the race thoroughly. There were certainly some opportunities, but just the worse starting position probably already cost us four or five seconds.”
Why did Red Bull forgo the undercut?
The probably decisive phase began towards the end of the second stint. After Verstappen had worked his way past both Ferraris, he was able to use his strong pace in free air and almost completely close the gap to George Russell of around five seconds.
On lap 38, Verstappen was for the first time less than two seconds behind the Mercedes – and thus in the undercut window. It had previously been shown that an undercut in Spielberg could bring between one and one and a half seconds.
By lap 40 at the latest, intense calculations were probably being made at the team radios. The gap was only 1.3 seconds. Nevertheless, Red Bull did not call Verstappen into the pits, and Mercedes also did not react with an early stop for Russell to block a possible undercut. Why?
With a pit stop on lap 40, Verstappen would have rejoined the track only just ahead of Isack Hadjar with the pit stop delta of around 20.5 seconds. A slightly slower stop would have even dropped him behind Lando Norris. In addition, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri had just been engaged in a duel.
The risk of losing valuable time due to traffic and rendering the undercut ineffective apparently seemed too great to Red Bull. Instead, they opted for the overcut. Mercedes recognized this situation and also kept Russell out longer to prevent Red Bull from gaining a larger tire delta.
Why the overcut failed
When Piastri and Hamilton made their final pit stops simultaneously at the end of lap 42, the track suddenly cleared. Now Verstappen could have tried the undercut, which meant Mercedes had to react immediately. Russell pitted at the end of lap 43, taking away Red Bull’s chance for the undercut.
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That left Verstappen only the chance for a successful overcut. But Andrea Kimi Antonelli played a decisive role here. The championship leader was about five seconds behind Verstappen but was significantly faster on fresher tires and gained about six tenths per lap.
Red Bull could therefore not delay the overcut indefinitely, as otherwise Antonelli himself could have attempted the undercut. At the end of lap 49, Verstappen was finally forced to stop. His lead over Antonelli had already shrunk to just 0.9 seconds, and the Mercedes mechanics were already ready for a possible undercut.
Would the medium have been the better choice?
In the post-analysis, Red Bull will probably have to admit that Mercedes read the race strategically almost perfectly and practically dictated Verstappen’s second pit stop. Nevertheless, two exciting questions remain open.
Should Red Bull have dared the undercut despite the traffic? Possibly Verstappen would have been fast enough to overtake Hamilton and Piastri immediately after the stop without losing much time. And shouldn’t they have preferred the medium tire for the overcut?
After all, Verstappen had both a fresh set of hard and a fresh set of medium tires for the last stint. Teammate Isack Hadjar ran the race with the medium-medium-hard strategy, so sufficient comparison data was available.
And since Verstappen’s second stint on the hard tire had been particularly strong, Red Bull probably again chose the same mix – hoping to have a pace advantage against Mercedes again.
Verstappen doubts the long overcut
“As always, we will analyze everything carefully and check if there was a faster strategy today,” said Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies after the race. “But Max showed an impressive race in tire management and in exploiting our potential.”
Verstappen himself had already noted during the race via radio to race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase that staying out long before the second pit stop was “not a good decision.” He stuck to this assessment after the race.
“I do believe I had an advantage over George in tire wear. At the same time, I also knew that the last stint would be very long,” said the Dutchman. “I felt that in the extra laps on the old tires, I probably lost more time than I could make up later with the new tires. But hindsight is always 20/20.”
Nevertheless, Verstappen draws a positive conclusion. “We had a really good race. It was a long way back to the podium and to have realistic chances of winning at all. That is definitely positive.”
He was particularly pleased with the performance improvement of the RB21. “For the first time, I really felt I could fight for the win. In the first half of the race, we were very competitive. In the second half, however, something at the rear of the car no longer felt right. Bumps, curbs, and traction – suddenly all of that was completely gone.”