Category: 6. Sports

It’s never too late to join the F1 Fantasy fun, and to celebrate McLaren’s home race at Silverstone we have a new McLaren Mini League for you to join.

The new F1 Fantasy league covers three iconic European events with the British Grand Prix, a Sprint weekend at Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix and the Hungarian Grand Prix, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

If you missed the start of the fantasy season, here’s a great opportunity to put your F1 knowledge to the test, pick your team and compete for exclusive prizes, including a tour of the McLaren Technology Centre, McLaren’s legendary HQ and home of their F1 team.

Haven’t played before? A new chance to join F1 Fantasy

For existing players, if your team is flagging in the league, it’s a chance for a reset. Just make sure to join the league within the game.

If you’re new to the game, this is a great place to start and try your hand at building a team.

F1 Fantasy is free and easy to play. Picking your team and joining the league is done in minutes. You get a $100m fantasy budget to spend on your selection of five drivers and two constructors. Then you join to play against friends, family or other fans, taking the Grand Prix weekends to the next level.

Papaya prizes in play

McLaren returned to the top last year, winning the Constructors’ Championship and matching Williams with a ninth team title – second only to Ferrari in the all-time standings.

We’re offering some exclusive papaya prizes to the top players in the McLaren Mini League, including a tour of the futuristic Technology Centre. You could win:

• First Place: McLaren Plus Technology Centre Tour for two guests and gift bag with signed cap (by Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri)
• Second Place: Signed cap (signed by Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri)
• Third Place:  Cap

Who gets your pick?

Tips for the triple-header

Sprint in Spa

Extra points are available in Belgium with the Sprint format, giving you an opportunity to make the most of chips like Limitless or Extra DRS.

Are Ferrari back?

Should the Scuderia be in your team after upgrades put them back on the podium?

Stick with Papaya

McLaren are still scoring well, with both drivers regularly in the top points as they duel for the Drivers’ title.

To join the McLaren Mini League, pick your F1 Fantasy team and finalise before Qualifying at The British Grand Prix starts on Saturday July 5 at 1500 local time (1400 UTC). Come on in and join the F1 Fantasy fun!

Toto Wolff was left to rue a challenging Austrian Grand Prix for Mercedes after Kimi Antonelli’s first-lap collision with Max Verstappen and George Russell’s lonely run to fifth position.

Winners last time out at the Canadian Grand Prix, Mercedes continued where they left off with a pace-setting display in first practice at the Red Bull Ring, but that would prove to be the high point of their weekend.

After Qualifying fifth and ninth respectively, Mercedes’ hopes of turning the situation around were severely dented at the start of the race when Antonelli lost control of his car under braking for Turn 3 and collected Red Bull rival Verstappen.

From there, Russell was the Silver Arrows’ sole representative and had to settle for converting his starting position – finishing a minute behind the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Asked to reflect on the race, beginning with Antonelli’s incident, which earned the rookie a three-place grid drop, Mercedes boss Wolff said: “We always knew that eventually… No, I word it differently. These mistakes happen.

“The rears blocked on the car. I’m not entirely sure it was his [Antonelli’s] fault or a system. I haven’t seen any data or heard anything, because obviously we were concentrating on the race. But that happens, you know.

“It’s unfortunate for Max and Red Bull that Kimi hit him, but it’s racing.”

Asked if he had spoken with Antonelli about what happened, Wolff shared: “Yeah, he came into the garage quickly. I said, ‘Well, that wasn’t great’, which he obviously knew, but he said the tyres just blocked and we need to analyse that.

“It’s a shame that Max… that we took another car out with us, but that can happen to the great ones, to the inexperienced ones, to the experienced ones – it’s just part of F1.”

Wolff then reflected on Mercedes’ wider weekend performance, having gone from pole position and victory with Russell in cooler Montreal conditions to finishing third-best behind McLaren and Ferrari amid the Spielberg heat.

“When you look at our performance last year, we won, we won the race here,” said Wolff, pointing to Russell capitalising on Verstappen and Norris’ clash. “We were, I don’t remember, 10-15 seconds behind the leaders, and that was a very solid performance.

“This year we’re a minute behind the leaders, so that is clearly out of the ordinary what happened today. We do experiment at the moment a little bit, how to position, how to put the car on track, where we put the balance, and clearly this one we got wrong – and we know that.

“I think it’s not only down to asphalt, long corners and heat. Clearly that’s not our sweet spot, but it doesn’t explain the gap, and I think we know why, but in hindsight you always know.”

Mercedes dropped back to third in the Teams’ Championship standings following Sunday’s race, a point behind Ferrari, who scored strongly with Charles Leclerc in P3 and Lewis Hamilton in P4.

Liam Lawson was in an ecstatic mood after recording his best-ever F1 finish with sixth in the Austrian Grand Prix, though his race was nearly over before it started on the opening lap.

The Racing Bulls driver came close to being taken out by Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli in Turn 3, with the two banging wheels as the Italian locked up and sailed straight on.

While Lawson narrowly avoided a race-ending crash, it was his former Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen instead that took the brunt of the collision, with both he and Antonelli forced to retire from the Grand Prix then and there.

Lawson put that bit of luck to good use as he went on to secure sixth, one of just two drivers to make a one-stop strategy work in Spielberg. With track temperatures passing 50C, making a set of tyres last was tricky – but Lawson was aided by having Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso on his tail.

Alonso was the second driver on a one-stop, and he was able to provide a buffer to some quicker two-stopping cars behind – even if the sight of the Spaniard in his wing mirrors all afternoon did nothing for Lawson’s heart rate.

“I’m a bit lost to be honest, it was a very tough race,” Lawson told Sky Sports F1. “Especially after Lap 1, I don’t know how I survived it to be honest.

“I thought – when I saw Kimi coming I was like, okay, this is over. But somehow, we got out of it. And then the speed was good, we made the one-stop work which was key for us. With the temperatures I wasn’t sure about it, but the team knew, so very, very happy.

“It is always Fernando who is behind, I think he was within DRS for 70 laps today! And you try not to make a mistake. I thought he was quicker, but I just spoke to him and he thought I was quicker, and he was using me to keep DRS!”

Lawson managed to make his hard tyres last 38 laps on Sunday, two longer than Alonso. But his team mate had an even tougher ask – Isack Hadjar made to do a 41-lap stint on his hard tyre.

That was despite the rookie two-stopping, the Frenchman forced into a very early opening stop after running wide twice on the opening lap to avoid contact. He did fight his way back up into the points, only to drop down the order late on.

At first it looked like his tyres had finally run out of life, but later Hadjar confirmed it was floor damage that prevented him scoring in Austria.

“We did a very good race,” Hadjar said. “We were comfortably in the points, and 15 laps towards the end of the race we got floor damage.

“I mean I thought P8 was secure, and then I was losing more than a second per lap. And yeah, that was a tough end to the race.”

The Racing Bulls rookie was told the damage was acquired through Turn 1, “probably the sausage kerb,” and reflected that all in all, it was a “shame.” This was the first time since Lawson returned to the team that he has managed to beat Hadjar on a Sunday, as he recorded just his second top 10 of the season.