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Max Verstappen moved up one place from fifth on the grid to fourth at the finish as Oracle Red Bull Racing laid the groundwork for a big Austrian Grand Prix performance in a fortnight’s time.
The Dutchman drove well to place seventh overall in the 2026 driver’s standings, but the car lacked the power to make the podium as teammate Isack Hadjar finished sixth on the day behind him.
Visa Cash App Racing Bulls duo Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad followed up their impressive qualifying display to finish in ninth and 10th respectively heading into the two-week break.
Oracle Red Bull Racing
MAX VERSTAPPEN – 4th
“Today we just didn’t have the pace to keep up with the cars ahead. I was really just doing my own race as we were a little bit behind the guys that finished in front of me. As a Team we did everything right, it was the winning strategy, so we made the right call there with the tyres. We were just too slow compared to the cars ahead on each compound, unfortunately. We tried our best and put everything into it but ultimately the whole weekend was a bit tough for us. We do struggle more with these high energy tracks with high degradation and we just need to work on things and try to find more pace in the upcoming races.”
ISACK HADJAR – 6th
“I felt like I had good pace this weekend once we got to Qualifying and the race, but I had a shocker at the race start with so much wheelspin, so that’s one aspect I really want to focus on before Red Bull Ring. We could have fought with Oscar if we had a good start, so it’s a bit of a shame. I think we did way better than we thought we would this weekend given the track layout and conditions. Austria will be a better track for us, and we expect to have a stronger car. We just need to work on the starts.”
LAURENT MEKIES – CEO and Team Principal
“The race produced an accurate picture of where we are with our current package on this sort of track. Coming into the weekend, we knew that a power and high speed corners circuit like Barcelona would present a slightly more complicated challenge than other types of circuit. What we saw today mirrored the situation in qualifying, in that we could fight with the other top teams but we did not have the pace to challenge for the win today. To do that, we still need to find between four and five tenths. Nevertheless, we have made progress compared to where we were at the start of the season, although as always, the final tenths are going to be the hardest to find. Everyone in Milton Keynes is working flat out to bring further developments as we push to close this gap. Today, we picked up all the points that were available to us based on our pace: a very strong race from Max who was on a well-managed and quite different three-stop strategy to those ahead. As for Isack, after a dramatic launch which saw him lose several places, he stayed cool and fought back with some great overtakes and a strong pace to score good points. And from a Red Bull Ford Powertrains point of view it was great to see that all cars finished in the points.”
