Austria 2026
Round 8 of 22: the hills are alive with the sound of Max Verstappen
I’m back!
I took some time off Substack to focus on my last weekend at school and post-grad travel. I was sad to miss the Barcelona recap (of all races), but time away always reminds me of how much I love this in the first place.
I graduated from Stanford on the same day that Lewis Hamilton won his first race with Ferrari, and his first win since Spa 2024.
Stanford’s color is red. We sprayed champagne and popped confetti. Safe to say it was one of the best days of my life.
This past weekend’s Austrian GP was declared a heat hazard, a precaution instituted after the Qatar GP in 2023 when weather forecasts predict temperatures of 31 C / 88 F. Both the Cadillac cars literally caught on fire. I’m going to start telling people I’m in “mode thermal survival” when it’s hot out.
The Red Bull Ring boasts the shortest lap on the calendar, a lot of elevation, and heavy braking zones. Small errors have big consequences. Overtaking is easier than in Barcelona.
This race holds a special place in my heart. I went in 2023, and it was my first “classic track” European race.
It’s the best bang for your buck if you’re going in person because the short lap means you get to see the cars go around more. I’ll always remember it as my first time in a garage (thanks McLaren), it seeming like The Sound of Music setting, feeling like fish out of water as women walking around in dresses, and passing 10K Instagram followers on the car ride back to Vienna.
Here’s blast from our vlog era past below if you want a sense of what the race is like in person.
RACE
DNF = Checo Perez, Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll
Quali summary
A dramatic end to Q3, with Max Verstappen putting everything on the line for his final flying lap only to have a rear wing failure that sent him into the wall. Most importantly, he was okay. More on the kerfuffle it caused below.
Race summary
