Shortly before the season half, Formula 1 takes up a lot of speed. In the development departments of the race stables, where there will be a shift change soon, and all efforts will already apply to the new generation of racing cars for 2026. But also on the Red Bull Ring, on which this Sunday (3 p.m., in the F.A.Z.-Live ticker for Formula 1 and Sky) the eleventh WM run. The qualification for the great prize of Austria on Saturday became a power demonstration by Lando Norris in the McLaren with a lead of 0.521 seconds, but also for an unexpected comeback from ferrari.charles Leclerc drove with the Red car on the second, Lewis Hamilton in fourth place. Both the English and the Scuderia recently stuck in a summer crisis and, at least through the good starting position for the race, were able to free themselves from the greatest pressure and underline that they can still be expected. Third-in-law starts Oscar Piatri, whose fastest round, as well as that of the only seventh defending champion Max Verstappen, had been affected by a yellow flag. Return from Vettel to Formula 1? There is no speed limit for the rumors in the paddock, they are still determined by Red Bull Racing since Formula 1 has arrived in Styria and Not only because of the home game for the beverage racing team. First of all, the conjectures were about whether the four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel will end his sabbatical from motorsport and at the end of next year as the successor to the Red Bull Taler Helmut Marko. The Heppenheimer had expressed itself in a podcast, Marko confirmed the first discussions. Intensive and more up -to -date is the Max Verstappen personnel, cheered on by the fact that Mercedes has officially not yet made a contract for the coming season. Above all, the unexplained future of George Russell, winner of the last race in Canada, gives rise to speculation: Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff hesitates the contract extension to get world champion Max Verstappen to the silver arrows? However, the continued unrest is also likely to disturb Russell, who wants a clear directional decision before his home game next week in Great Britain. Wolff speaks of a low probability of signing Verstappen for 2026, but generally applies: “As the team boss of the best car brand in the world, it is clear that you are researching what a four-time world champion in the future, and that could be in the future.” Max Verstappen, 27, is equipped with a kind of pension contract with a kind of pension contract and increasingly annoyed by the discussions. With every result that does not meet his claim, such as the seventh place in Spielberg caused by a short -term neutralization phase on its fastest qualification round, new doubts arise in his future. In principle, however, the Dutch, especially over the current technical deficit, is thinking of his thoughts. Racing stable consultant Marko found the exception of Lando Norris as “Watschn” for Red Bull. Team boss Christian Horner, himself a master of speculation and the associated manipulation, describes the current discussions as “a lot of noise”. The team and Verstappen are “very clear” about the situation. More about the topic dependent on the outcome of the 71 rounds on the short mountain and valley railway from Spielberg, Ferrari also has a little more clarity: This also worked at the SF-25, which was early in Italy. With the underbody, this was not only changed completely in terms of area, but also decisive part of the red car for the aerodynamics. A new rear wheel suspension will be added next weekend in Silverstone. In combination, the racing car can then be coordinated deeper and probably better. The second and fourth place, above all, calms down the most recent pilots, even if it has to be confirmed, even if it still has to be confirmed that the technical change also works in other route characteristics. Record world champion Lewis Hamilton in particular spoke of a “fantastic result” after the strong Saturday performance. Hope gives him that both Ferrari drivers were roughly equally strong and that qualifying could just as the other way around. The Brit urgently needs such experiences, even if they appear rather modestly in terms of its great successes and have to be considered fragile until it comes to breakthrough in the race. Hamilton, who has so far been surprisingly sword with the acclimatization in Maranello, even seemed exuberant: “From how our teamwork worked, it was the best day of the season.” The 40-year-old even used the vocabulary “world class” and added: “This is exactly what we work towards.”
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