There were significant upgrades for some key contenders coming into the Austrian Grand Prix - but Formula 1 world championship leader Kimi Antonelli ended Friday firmly on top.

Here’s our pick of who had the best and worst starts to the weekend.

Loser: Red Bull (4th & 7th)

Red Bull debuted a brand-new upgrade package at the Austrian GP that it hoped would help it permanently leave its ‘fourth-best team’ island behind the top three. 

But the picture of how successful its upgrade has been was clouded by a number of issues (unrelated to the upgrade) that cost both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar valuable track time.

Neither driver was particularly happy aboard the RB22 on Friday, particularly at the Turn 3 right-hander at the top of the hill. 

“It's like the rears are grabbing, locking up and you lose all the support,” Hadjar explained.

“It's not a linear grip, it's not nice, so you're constantly guessing the grip. Then once you go back on throttle, the engine has to catch up and it creates wheelspin on exit. 

“So it's really, really poor. Just in this corner, I don't know how much we're losing, but it really feels bad.” - Josh Suttill

Winner: Kimi Antonelli (1st)

It's clear there is no sign of a post-Barcelona GP hangover for Antonelli, who looks in no way, shape or form unsettled by those lost points.

He swept the day here, with a particularly potent lap in the second session - a quarter of a second in the clear, even as there were signs that his rubber (which had already had a push lap put through it) was going off.

Mercedes team-mate George Russell, who looked way off in his qualifying sims in that session, sounded calm about it. There was "nothing to be concerned about", he insisted.

And Russell is pretty much in Antonelli's ballpark in the limited sample of the race simulations. But there's no evidence he's ahead. - Val Khorounzhiy

Loser (maybe?): Ferrari (5th & 8th)

Fresh from its victory at the Barcelona Grand Prix that has reignited Formula 1’s title battle, and unleashing an ADUO-assisted engine upgrade, Ferrari had grabbed the attention in the build up to the Austria weekend.

But the opening day of running at the Red Bull Ring did perhaps not go as expected as both its drivers were struggling with car balance, and lacking grip plus both single lap pace and long run performance.

Lewis Hamilton ended up behind a Mercedes, both McLarens and a Red Bull in FP2 with fifth place overall, three places ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc who wound up eighth.

What mattered more was long runs though, and the picture did not look much better as Hamilton’s average put him behind the Mercedes and McLaren – and only in the ballpark of Verstappen.

However, rivals were well aware that the GPS data seemed to show Ferrari not showing its hand on the straights – which could be a sign that it has not turned its power units up yet.

And after Ferrari went from a lacklustre Friday at Barcelona to victory on the Sunday, its rivals are not taking anything for granted yet. - Jon Noble

Winner: McLaren (2nd & 3rd)

McLaren was a really good Antonelli lap away from topping FP2, looks decent in long runs, and appears to be a frontrunning contender again in Austria.

The day could have been chalked up as a failure with Lando Norris stuck in the garage after a hydraulic leak in FP1, and while he had two excursions at Turn 3 and one at Turn 7 as he tried to acclimatise in FP2, he topped the order at one stage - and then delivered the third best long-run of that session behind the Mercedes.

It’s still early and there’s a lot of upgrades and updates being trialled which could mix up the order tomorrow. But for now, despite some unreliability, McLaren looks like a proper Mercedes challenger on a day where Ferrari is either struggling or hasn’t turned its new engine up yet. - Jack Benyon

Loser: Cadillac (21st & 22nd)

Where to start?! The most upgraded car on the grid - at least in terms of what’s listed in the FIA sheet to start the weekend - went 13th with Valtteri Bottas in FP1, which is very, very encouraging indeed.

But it went off a cliff from there. Perez stopped on track in both sessions with electrical problems and managed 16 laps total on the day.

And while Bottas can be encouraged, he got only six laps in FP2 after his car immediately hit trouble coming out of the pits on an outlap when it started dragging on the floor at the front due to what chief technical officer Nick Chester called "a build issue". Clearly it wasn’t an easy fix as Bottas didn’t re-emerge and only eight laps were netted by the new team in FP2 at all.

A succession of issues it really didn’t need while trying to understand new upgrades. - JB

Winner: Jak Crawford (20th in FP1)

FP1-only drivers can't be judged too harshly when they're off the pace - as there's always a chance that's down to run plan, or programme, or instructions. But when they're firmly on the pace, that's inevitably a lot easier to take at face value.

Enter Crawford, who was indeed firmly on the pace in his second appearance of the season. The 2026 Aston Martin doesn't give its drivers much to work with, but what we know about the car seems totally in line with where Crawford put it.

FP1 rookies' gap to team-mates
Hirakawa +1.422s (Bearman)
Iwasa +0.911s (Lindblad)
Beganovic +0.593s (Hamilton)
Aron +0.481s (Hulkenberg)
Browning +0.335s (Albon)
Crawford -0.131s (Alonso)

Crawford will be better-prepared than most for this exact undertaking given his extensive simulator running for Aston Martin (and lack of a concurrent race programme to navigate) - and while he says he had "the exact same [run] plan" as team-mate Fernando Alonso, chances are getting a laptime in FP1 didn't matter to Alonso as much as it did to Crawford.

But the gap to first place looks right, also in light of what the Aston Martins managed in FP2. Which can only be a feather in Crawford's cap. - VK

Loser: Williams (17th & 18th)

Williams is a contender for F1's 'loneliest' team on evidence of Austria practice - it should be well clear of Cadillac and Aston Martin, but looks outmatched by the rest of the midfield it strives to join.

A chuckling Alex Albon, the quicker Williams driver on the day, listed off "grip, balance, downforce" as the main issues.

"I didn’t expect us to struggle this much around this circuit," he admitted.

"We need to try to find where we can gain some more laptime. I think in the low-speed we’re actually quite similar to the top teams, and to the midfield teams, maybe even actually better than some of the midfield teams… in the high-speed corners, like Turns 7-9-10, we’re far behind, really struggling to match the other cars.

"And then when you slide more in the high speed corners you also have more degradation - we need to see what we can do because the race car is not quick enough today."

Indeed, while the single-lap picture is unspectacular, Williams is also "not super happy" with high-fuel performance, according to sporting director Sven Smeets. - VK