McLaren under threat: Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes bring key upgrades in Austria. In Austria, McLaren’s three main rival top teams are ready to reshape the season.

In Austria, McLaren’s three main rival top teams are ready to reshape the season, bringing significant upgrades to their cars at the Red Bull Ring.

If the 2025 Formula 1 season has so far followed a single path, things might change starting from the eleventh round. In fact, on the Spielberg circuit, ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, McLaren’s three direct rivals will debut major updates on their cars in an attempt to gain extra tenths and close what currently seems like an unbridgeable gap.

A dominant season
Since pre-season testing in this 75th year of Formula 1, the situation has been clear. The engineers at Woking have created a perfect car. As we’ve seen, the MCL39 performs well in all conditions: under the pouring rain in Melbourne, on both fast tracks and street circuits (like Barcelona and Monaco), and most notably when temperatures are very high.

It’s this last aspect that particularly highlights the strength of the project. And now that we’ve officially entered the summer stretch of the season—where we’re likely to face high temperatures every weekend—and with McLaren’s misstep in Montreal, rival teams are not waiting. To close the gap with McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes will bring major upgrades to Austria.

The upgrades debuting in Austria
Let’s start with the home team: Red Bull. According to reports, the engineers at Milton Keynes will bring a car with modifications to the floor, various aerodynamic components, and some internal elements of the front suspension. This entire package will then be optimized with further developments at Silverstone.

The Maranello team will follow a similar approach: new parts in Austria, full package at the next British GP. As we covered in more detail in another article you can find by clicking here, Ferrari will debut a completely revised floor to try and fully exploit all the strengths of the SF-25. A true revolution, however, will arrive at Silverstone.

The final team we’ll look at is the one that, quite unexpectedly, dominated the entire Canadian weekend: Mercedes. As revealed by Simone Resta, Mercedes plans to introduce further major updates at the Red Bull Ring. Without revealing too much, the Italian engineer stated: “We’ve learned a lot, especially from the Imola and Barcelona weekends. I believe we’ll strengthen our competitiveness again in Austria. We’ll bring some upgrades that will help improve our performance.”