Lando Norris found redemption in Spielberg, while Red Bull suffered a disaster at its home track, and the rookies grabbed the headlines. Here’s who impressed in F1’s Austrian GP and who missed the (Steier)mark.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Winners: Lando Norris and McLaren

Lando Norris endured plenty of criticism after his faux pas in Canada, and he knew full well that he had to nail a faultless weekend to change the narrative of his 2025 season. His openness about his flaws is sometimes used against him, but even his detractors will surely respect the way he bounced back in Austria.

Norris took a convincing pole, which was helped by team-mate Oscar Piastri being denied a second run, but the Australian admitted Norris was quicker anyway. He then kept his head cool while under a lot of pressure from Piastri, who was clinging onto his gearbox, to take his third win of the season to boost his title hopes. 

Credit to McLaren for continuing to let its drivers race freely, as promised, even after Piastri’s ambitious lunge into Turn 4. Without it, it would have been a boring afternoon of papaya domination. The latter may well carry over to the next few races. 

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Losers: Yuki Tsunoda and Red Bull 

Yuki Tsunoda’s woes have reached a critical level after another disappointing weekend. Both he and Verstappen lost performance into Saturday qualifying, but while Verstappen limited the damage with seventh Tsunoda was out in 18th. Yes, Tsunoda is still not entirely up to the same specification as the Dutchman, but – as we understand it – the difference is minimal. 

Tsunoda’s seat is not in immediate danger, as previous occupants have shown there doesn’t seem much scope for improvement, and promoting Isack Hadjar too early doesn’t seem like a great idea either. But the Japanese driver’s long-term prospects aren’t looking peachy, and Red Bull really needs to dig deep to find solutions now. 

Max Verstappen’s long run pace didn’t look particularly great either in FP3, but obviously we never got to see it in the race after he was taken out by Kimi Antonelli on lap 1. Red Bull has had many glorious weekends at its home track, but this… wasn’t one of them. 

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Winner: Ferrari 

Ferrari earned its fair share of criticism this season, especially in Italy, but can head home to Maranello with some momentum to build on as it was clearly the best non-papaya team in the Styrian hills. The all-new floor seems to have worked, twelve months on from a flawed 2024 upgrade that sent the team into a tailspin. 

Leclerc was powerless to resist Piastri, but third felt like a mini-victory given McLaren’s dominance, and Lewis Hamilton also had his strongest race in red despite struggling with some niggling brake and balance issues. 

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Andy Hone / LAT Images via Getty Images

Losers: Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes 

Inconsistency is inevitably going to run through Kimi Antonelli’s rookie campaign, and two weeks on from the 18-year-old’s breakthrough podium in Montreal – as F1’s third-youngest podium finisher – he’s experienced the flipside of the coin with a costly first-lap mistake that saw him spear Verstappen out of the race. Antonelli shouldn’t be judged too harshly, but it did leave the onus on George Russell to salvage something for Mercedes. 

Unfortunately for Russell, that was a lonely fifth spot as Mercedes got bogged down by its typical overheating problems on a hot and abrasive track, with Russell calling the Austrian Grand Prix “a perfect storm” for the team as it faced a fiery cocktail of everything its 2025 car dislikes. 

Mercedes will be hoping for a typically British summer next week in Silverstone, rather than the unusually toasty conditions that Spielberg (and the UK) currently faces. 

Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber

Photo by: Andy Hone / LAT Images via Getty Images

Winner: Gabriel Bortoleto and Sauber 

Gabriel Bortoleto has quietly impressed everyone at Sauber this season, and across rival teams too. Thus far, however, the reigning F2 champion has little to show for it. He is now finally off the mark after coming home in eighth in Austria, drawing praise from his mentor Fernando Alonso after pair’s exciting battle in the closing stages. 

Team principal Jonathan Wheatley said Bortoleto’s breakthrough result was inevitable, but the Brazilian couldn’t hide his relief as the lack of results appeared to be weighing on him. His rookie season is finally up and running. 

There’s more and more evidence that Sauber’s progress is real, with Nico Hulkenberg also looking good for Q3 until a Q1 mistake left him last on the grid. But the experienced German made an excellent start on softs and worked his way up the order swiftly, looking handy on all three tyre compounds. He eventually finished the race in ninth.  

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images

Losers: Williams 

Fernando Alonso has shaken off the cartoon anvil that has been chasing him around the first quarter of the season and has apparently enlisted Aston’s logistics partner to deliver it to Williams HQ in Grove. 

After a disappointing weekend in Canada, Williams again wasted a perfectly good opportunity to score decent points, with the early exits of Verstappen and Antonelli opening up the top 10. The team believes two different technical issues hit Carlos Sainz before the race even started, and led to Alex Albon’s second retirement in consecutive races – with Albon’s issue looking similar to the one that thwarted him in Montreal. 

Suddenly, Williams’ margin in the constructors’ championship doesn’t look that handsome any longer and, with its rivals catching up on development as well, is the battle for fifth truly on? 

Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Winner: Liam Lawson  

Liam Lawson has been put through the ringer this season after his absurdly short Red Bull stint, only to come home to Racing Bulls facing an impressive Isack Hadjar – who by that point was already firing on all cylinders. And while Lawson was clearly on the back foot in terms of seat time in the VCARB 02, he has gradually improved and looked excellent all weekend in Austria. 

The New Zealander qualified sixth and stayed there after making a difficult one-stop strategy work, helped by Racing Bulls’ excellent tyre management that had already paid dividends in Barcelona. It’s a just reward for Lawson, who has faced more external criticism than he deserved. 

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Losers: Lance Stroll and Alpine 

When Lance Stroll was asked why he missed the drivers’ F1 movie screening, his reply was a customarily brief “just stuff”. Unfortunately for the Canadian, an apt summary of his Austria weekend would be “just slow” after his Friday pace proved a mirage. 

Aston Martin’s car is clearly weaker on Sundays, with Alonso resorting to making a one-stop work, so in his defence Stroll was never going to make a heroic comeback from the rear of the field. But the gulf with a combative Alonso on both Saturday and Sunday was quite telling as Stroll is struggling to click with the AMR25. 

We’ll have to throw in a (dis)honourable mention for Alpine, too, which clearly has pace in the car but has found it so hard to extract it on Sundays. The team lacked a little luck in Austria, too, with Pierre Gasly’s car totally undrivable after picking up damage and Franco Colapinto clumsily clattering with Tsunoda. 

But after Gasly’s bright opening stint on softs, neither car was looking like it was going places, with Flavio Briatore calling its performance “increasingly concerning” in Alpine’s refreshingly forthright press release.

HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — Chase Elliott couldn’t have picked a better setting for a drought-breaking win.

Fans roared in approval after Elliott, the home-state favorite, passed Brad Keselowski on the final lap to end a 44-race drought by winning the NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta on Saturday night.

Elliott’s 20th career victory pushed him to second place in the Cup Series points race, putting him in prime position to return to the top of the NASCAR world after winning his first championship in 2020.

Elliott earned a spot in the NASCAR playoffs with his first victory since April 2024 at Texas. He said he’ll always remember the win as a career highlight, in part because of the ovation from fans who chanted “Chase! Chase! Chase!”

Elliott, a Dawsonville, Georgia, native, climbed into the stands at EchoPark Speedway, formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway, to celebrate with the fans.

“It was, truthfully, a pretty surreal moment,” Elliott said. “Something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. … Saturday night under the lights, been a while since we won, just getting ourselves a win and advancing up on the playoff thing.”

It was his first Atlanta win since 2022.

Elliott has 594 points, 37 behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, who has 631. A third Hendrick Motorsports driver, Kyle Larson, is third.

Another Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, played a key role in Elliott’s comeback win. Bowman, who finished third, gave Elliott a push and then helped block Keselowski on the final lap.

“I’m happy for the 9 team,” Bowman said. “It’s a big win for him in his hometown. … I’m glad to have a Hendrick car in victory lane. I wish it was us.”

Elliott said he’ll try to repay the favor by helping Bowman join the other three Hendrick drivers in the playoffs.

“I recognize that he gave me a great shove,” Elliott said. “I recognize that he took his run on Brad, too, to try to get himself to second, which ultimately helped me as well.

“Yeah, those are all things that I remember.”

Elliott advanced to the second round of NASCAR’s new In-Season Challenge, a five-race, bracket-style tournament. With the field cut from 32 to 16 drivers, Elliott will be paired against John Hunter Nemechek when the Cup Series moves to the Chicago Street Race next Sunday.

A $1 million prize awaits the winner, and Elliott’s odds improved after Atlanta wrecks knocked out the top two seeds, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.

Elliott wouldn’t be the first family member to win a $1 million bonus. In 1985 his father, Bill Elliott, became the first winner of the Winston Million as a reward for claiming wins in three of the circuit’s top four races at the time. The bonus earned the elder Elliott the nickname “Million Dollar Bill.”

Now the younger Elliott is a strong contender to become first in line for another $1 million prize.

“It’d be a really cool thing to win for sure and hope it works out that way,” Chase Elliott said.

Elliott’s victory drought came after he needed surgery to repair a broken tibia in his left leg suffered in a snowboarding accident and missed six races in 2023. He said the support of longtime crew chief Alan Gustafson was “in large part” responsible for helping him retain his confidence and reclaim his winning form.

Gustafson said the win was more important for the 2025 playoff race than for ending the victory drought.

“The points were getting tight for the playoffs, for sure,” Gustafson said. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing. I think all the cars contending to win, I don’t think any of them had won. I think that’s probably the biggest thing we needed was that cushion.”

Saturday night’s win was Elliott’s third consecutive top-five finish.

“When you’re fortunate enough to climb the mountain and be able to stand at the top of the mountain with someone, that’s an incredible achievement, right?” Elliott said. “That’s something that (Gustafson) and I will always cherish and remember that we did that together.

“For me it’s really, really important to climb that mountain with the same people that we did the first time and know that we never quit on each other. That’s just a really important piece of the puzzle for me.”

The city of Chicago is just one week away from NASCAR’s top drivers speeding through Grant Park, and significant street closures are on the way.

The Xfinity Series’ Loop 110 will take place on Saturday afternoon in Chicago, with the green flag dropping at 3:30 p.m., while the Cup Series’ Grant Park 165 will take place Sunday beginning at 1 p.m.

Chicago’s race is the only NASCAR event that takes place on a city circuit, with drivers speeding down iconic streets like Michigan Avenue, Columbus Drive and DuSable Lake Shore Drive.

As a result of the placement of the circuit, numerous significant street closures will take effect this week as crews prepare the track for the big event.

Already streets like Columbus Drive, Jackson Drive, Balbo Drive and Congress Plaza Drive have been closed to traffic, but major thoroughfares will start closing in coming days.

City officials say that Roosevelt Road will close Wednesday night beginning at 10 p.m. between Michigan Avenue and DuSable Lake Shore Drive, allowing for the setup of Turns 4 and 5 on the race track.

Long before NASCAR raced through downtown, Chicago was already home to the nation’s first auto race and decades of motorsports history, as told by Chicago racing historian Stan Kalwasinski.

Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. will feature another significant closure, as the southbound lanes of DuSable Lake Drive will close between Randolph and McFetridge, with Turns 2, 3 and 4 featured on the iconic roadway.

At 10 p.m. Thursday, Michigan Avenue will close between Roosevelt Road and Jackson Drive. In addition, northbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive will close between Randolph and McFetridge, and will remain closed for the remainder of the race weekend.

 The races take place Saturday and Sunday. There will be closures on Michigan Avenue, Monroe Street, Ida B. Wells Drive, Indiana Avenue, Post Place and Garvey Court, among others. A full list can be found on the OEMC website.

Streets will begin reopening after the conclusion of the race. DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue are “priority streets,” according to the city.

Shane van Ginsbergen won the inaugural race on the Cup Series in 2023, followed by a win for Alex Bowman in the 2024 race, which was shortened to 58 laps due to inclement weather and darkness.

As things stand heading into the Chicago race, Kyle Larson leads the Cup Series, followed by Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell.

Van Ginsbergen is currently 10^th in the standings, while Bowman is ranked 15^th.

Another weekend of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series is in the books after a thrilling race at EchoPark Speedway, formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway.

After a last-lap overtake on Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott won the Quaker State 400 to take his first victory of the season, locking himself into the playoffs as a result.

NASCAR HEADLINES: Joey Logano claims $1 MILLION as Cup Series team set for sale

It was a chaotic 260 laps of action, however, and this is shown when looking at NASCAR’s race penalty sheet, which shows that a total of 86 in-race penalties were dished out, and to some huge names.

As always, the most common infraction during the race was ‘pitting before pit road was open’, with a multitude of drivers handed tail-end penalties for this, including the likes of Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, and Bubba Wallace.

Seven drivers were also hit with speeding penalties for ‘speeding on pit road’ during Saturday’s race, with Tyler Reddick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. among those guilty in this regard.

Elsewhere, Ross Chastain was one of five drivers penalized for having ‘too many crewmembers in contact with pit service area’, whilst Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe were among 10 drivers guilty of ‘commitment line violations’.

Other penalties dished out at Atlanta include: Removing equipment from assigned pit area (Dillon), crewmembers over the wall too soon (Zilisch), DVP violation (Gilliland), and driving through more than three pit boxes (Reddick).

That isn’t all of them, however, so see below for a full breakdown.

READ MORE: NASCAR announce Kyle Larson penalty as Hendrick Motorsports hit with double punishment

NASCAR Cup Series Atlanta penalties

With the above said, here is a full breakdown of all of Saturday’s in-race penalties and when they occurred.

Speeding on pit road

Pitting before pit road is open

Commitment Line Violation

Too many crewmembers in contact with pit service area

Other Penalties

READ MORE: NASCAR owner agrees to sell Cup Series team

Related

By CHARLES ODUM

HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — Chase Elliott couldn’t have picked a better setting for a drought-breaking win.

Fans roared in approval after Elliott, the home-state favorite, passed Brad Keselowski on the final lap to end a 44-race drought by winning the NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta on Saturday night.

Elliott’s 20th career victory pushed him to second place in the Cup Series points race, putting him in prime position to return to the top of the NASCAR world after winning his first championship in 2020.

Elliott earned a spot in the NASCAR playoffs with his first victory since April 2024 at Texas. He said he’ll always remember the win as a career highlight, in part because of the ovation from fans who chanted “Chase! Chase! Chase!”

Elliott, a Dawsonville, Georgia, native, climbed into the stands at EchoPark Speedway, formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway, to celebrate with the fans.

“It was, truthfully, a pretty surreal moment,” Elliott said. “Something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. … Saturday night under the lights, been a while since we won, just getting ourselves a win and advancing up on the playoff thing.”

It was his first Atlanta win since 2022.

Elliott has 594 points, 37 behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, who has 631. A third Hendrick Motorsports driver, Kyle Larson, is third.

Another Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, played a key role in Elliott’s comeback win. Bowman, who finished third, gave Elliott a push and then helped block Keselowski on the final lap.

“I’m happy for the 9 team,” Bowman said. “It’s a big win for him in his hometown. … I’m glad to have a Hendrick car in victory lane. I wish it was us.”

Elliott said he’ll try to repay the favor by helping Bowman join the other three Hendrick drivers in the playoffs.

“I recognize that he gave me a great shove,” Elliott said. “I recognize that he took his run on Brad, too, to try to get himself to second, which ultimately helped me as well.

“Yeah, those are all things that I remember.”

Elliott advanced to the second round of NASCAR’s new In-Season Challenge, a five-race, bracket-style tournament. With the field cut from 32 to 16 drivers, Elliott will be paired against John Hunter Nemechek when the Cup Series moves to the Chicago Street Race next Sunday.

A $1 million prize awaits the winner, and Elliott’s odds improved after Atlanta wrecks knocked out the top two seeds, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.

Elliott wouldn’t be the first family member to win a $1 million bonus. In 1985 his father, Bill Elliott, became the first winner of the Winston Million as a reward for claiming wins in three of the circuit’s top four races at the time. The bonus earned the elder Elliott the nickname “Million Dollar Bill.”

Now the younger Elliott is a strong contender to become first in line for another $1 million prize.

“It’d be a really cool thing to win for sure and hope it works out that way,” Chase Elliott said.

Elliott’s victory drought came after he needed surgery to repair a broken tibia in his left leg suffered in a snowboarding accident and missed six races in 2023. He said the support of longtime crew chief Alan Gustafson was “in large part” responsible for helping him retain his confidence and reclaim his winning form.

Gustafson said the win was more important for the 2025 playoff race than for ending the victory drought.

“The points were getting tight for the playoffs, for sure,” Gustafson said. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing. I think all the cars contending to win, I don’t think any of them had won. I think that’s probably the biggest thing we needed was that cushion.”

Saturday night’s win was Elliott’s third consecutive top-five finish.

“When you’re fortunate enough to climb the mountain and be able to stand at the top of the mountain with someone, that’s an incredible achievement, right?” Elliott said. “That’s something that (Gustafson) and I will always cherish and remember that we did that together.

“For me it’s really, really important to climb that mountain with the same people that we did the first time and know that we never quit on each other. That’s just a really important piece of the puzzle for me.”

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

It was a hot start to summer in Chicago for our legacy sports teams. Up was down, down was up and our downtown streets buckled just in time for the Chicago Street Race.

The first half of the Chicago Cubs season was like a good book you couldn’t put down.

Amazing comebacks, plenty of runs and the daily Pete Crow-Armstrong Show. Wrigley Field was packed, and for the first time since the Theo Epstein rebuild, there was reason to believe in the team’s future.

Whether the second half can match the start depends largely on whether Epstein’s replacement as president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer, can fill some rotation holes and shore up the bench. Hoyer fixed a shaky bullpen early in the season with low-key, underrated moves and now faces another obstacle.

When Marquee Sports Network analyst Cliff Floyd pulled out a tiny red flag recently to signal the Cubs had starting pitching concerns, it signaled two things:

The Cubs do have starting pitching concerns, and Floyd has a guaranteed contract.

Through the fog of a team-owned network that often serves as a marketing tool for all things Cubs, Floyd’s flag stood out. It’s obvious to everyone that Hoyer needs to do something. But when Marquee joins in, you know it’s serious.

The return of Shota Imanaga on Thursday in St. Louis after seven weeks rehabbing a hamstring injury was a shot in the arm for the Cubs, who were 12-12 in June entering Saturday’s game against the Houston Astros, slowing to a light jog after sprinting for the first two months.

But it doesn’t bail out the rest of the rotation, which is in a state of flux with Ben Brown back at Triple-A Iowa. Only Matthew Boyd and Jameson Taillon are assured of keeping their spots behind Imanaga, and Taillon has allowed an MLB-worst 2.08 home runs per nine innings. Rookie Cade Horton was roughed up Friday night in Houston, bluntly saying, “I got my ass kicked.”

Saturday night’s starter, Colin Rea, allowed seven runs on 11 hits against the Seattle Mariners last week, serving up four home runs. True, the wind was blowing out at Wrigley, but it has blown in plenty of times for Rea, whom left-handed hitters are salivating over with a .952 OPS against the right-hander.

If someone told you in March the White Sox would have a better rotation than the Cubs at the midway point, you would’ve laughed or cried, depending on your anxiety level.

Justin Steele’s season-ending elbow surgery and Imanaga’s hamstring injury obviously have factored into the Cubs’ rotation problems, but they were supposed to have starting depth. Instead, their starters ranked 23rd entering Saturday with a 4.31 ERA. Sox starters, meanwhile, were 18th at 4.20.

Thanks in no small part to the offense, Cubs starters were a combined 30-21, while Sox starters, with no run support to speak of, were a combined 13-30. Would you swap rotations if you were a Cubs fan?

The Sox likely will deal starter Adrian Houser before the trade deadline, in case Hoyer hasn’t heard lately from his Winnetka Starbucks buddy, Sox general manager Chris Getz.

Houser has a 1.90 ERA in seven starts for the Sox after throwing seven shutout innings in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants. He’s affordable and shouldn’t cost the Cubs more than a prospect.

Lonzo Ball is out, and this time it’s for good.

The Cleveland Cavaliers accepted the challenge of trying to get Ball healthy enough to play in the NBA, acquiring him from the Chicago Bulls for Isaac Okoro, a disappointing top-five pick in the 2020 draft.

When healthy, Ball can be a premier player. He was that player for only 35 games in the 2021-22 season before the knee injury that would sideline him for 2½ seasons. He came back with a new knee in 2024-25, only to be limited to 35 games by a wrist injury and other ailments.

What if Ball had remained healthy? Would the Bulls have been competitive enough to be an annual playoff team the last four years?

Probably not, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas, who reportedly is getting a contract extension for reasons that never will be publicly explained, wouldn’t have made the necessary trade-deadline decisions even if Ball had been healthy on a winning team.

Hopefully Ball can overcome his injuries and become the player many thought he’d be and not the Bulls version of former Cubs pitcher Mark Prior.

Luis Robert Jr. has a 0.0 WAR, which seems almost impossible for a player with his talent. Getz said Monday it’s still possible Robert could remain with the Sox after the trade deadline, which would be a shocking twist for a player who has been on trade-rumor watch for more than a year.

“We’ve never been out there making phone calls about Luis Robert,” Getz said. “It’s teams calling us and we have conversations. And (we’ve stuck) to the plan that we’ve been working (on) so far in which, if we feel like we can help the long-term health of the organization, so be it.

“We like having Luis Robert and I enjoy having him in the lineup on a nightly basis.”

Three days later, Robert was out with hamstring tightness. The wait goes on … and on.

Anton Frondell, the No. 3 pick in the NHL draft by the Chicago Blackhawks, could provide the organization with a much-needed personality boost, along with what he can do on the ice. His draft-day story of starting out as a 5-year-old wearing pink figure skates showed his sense of humor.

Frondell compared himself to Florida Panthers star Aleksander Barkov, another 6-foot-3, 215-pound forward who can score goals and doesn’t get pushed around. When the Hawks asked him whether he’d prefer to be a center or winger, Frondell replied, “Whatever Connor (Bedard) doesn’t play, I’ll play.”

Look for the Hawks marketing machine to put these two on billboards soon. It’s what they do best.

Our pick to click in next week’s Chicago Street Race is Katherine Legge, the eighth woman in modern history to compete in NASCAR and the first since Danica Patrick in 2018 to race in the Cup Series. In its third year, Chicago’s NASCAR race could use a nice storyline like a woman outdueling a field of men — and less rain.

Buckling pavement on the pop-up course from the recent heat wave provided a realistic, Chicago-style driving obstacle. But crews quickly repaired the pavement, which of course never would happen to a normal Chicago street.