Lando Norris feels ‘sorry’ for Ferrari after what he realised watching them in Austrian Grand Prix

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Lando Norris feels “sorry” for Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, after he saw during the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix that it is “not possible” for them to do what Ferrari need.

Ferrari headed to the Red Bull Ring on a high as Hamilton had taken his first win in red at the previous round in Barcelona. The Scuderia even hit the Styrian hills with an upgraded engine in the back of their cars, but their weekend fell to pieces despite a strong result in qualifying.

Before Max Verstappen crashed during qualifying for the Austrian GP, Leclerc was on course to pip Hamilton in a Ferrari front row lock-out. Yet the marshals only initially waving a single yellow flag left the door open for George Russell to secure pole position for the Austrian GP.

Any hopes that Ferrari still held for fighting Russell over the win then fell away quickly in the race, as Hamilton slumped to a P5 finish with a 26.393-second deficit to his fellow Briton. An eighth-place finish was the best that Leclerc could score, too, while Norris came home in P7.

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Lando Norris saw Ferrari’s straight-line speed struggles during the Austrian Grand Prix

Juan Pablo Montoya criticised Ferrari’s strategy for Hamilton during the Austrian GP, after he did a usual three-stop strategy that saw him spend 17 laps on the soft C5 tyres in the middle of the race. But Norris drew a different conclusion for Ferrari’s struggles at the Red Bull Ring.

READ MORE: George Russell wins the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix in a tight three-way fight

After enduring his own disappointment during the Austrian GP last weekend, Norris realised how the Ferrari pair of Hamilton and Leclerc could not attack the corners as they needed to in order to combat the Scuderia’s power deficit on the straights due to the 2026 Pirelli tyres.

“The biggest shock today was Ferrari,” McLaren ace Norris explained, via Formule1.NL, after Sunday’s race. “They really struggled. To be honest, I feel sorry for them.

“I mean, if you don’t have power, you have to push through the corners like a madman, and that’s not possible with these tyres. It was a tough race for them.”

Leclerc also adopted a three-stop strategy like Hamilton, and he slipped from P2 on the grid to P8 at the chequered flag due to Ferrari’s problems at the Austrian GP. Norris hit the finish line in P7, 14.154s in front of Leclerc, after McLaren kept the Briton on a two-stop strategy.

It likely did not help Ferrari’s efforts that Leclerc and Hamilton fought with each other during the Austrian GP, too, with the former even briefly holding the latter up before then instantly pitting. But their hopes of a podium finish, in truth, were unaffected by a brief internal duel.

What became clear at the Red Bull Ring was, as Norris notes, that Ferrari’s engine update at the Austrian GP has not moved the needle enough for the SF-26 to challenge the Mercedes W17 and arguably the Red Bull RB22 around power-hungry tracks like last weekend’s venue.