2020 Austrian Grand Prix

The 2020 Austrian Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Rolex Großer Preis von Österreich 2020) was a Formula One motor race that was held on 5 July 2020 at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. The race was the opening round of the 2020 Formula One World Championship, and the 34th running of the Austrian Grand Prix (the 33rd as part of the World Championship since 1950) as well as the first of two consecutive races held at the Red Bull Ring, with the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix taking place the week after.

Lewis Hamilton entered the round as the defending World Drivers' Champion and his team, Mercedes as the defending World Constructors' Champion. Max Verstappen was the defending race winner, having won the 2018 and 2019 Austrian Grands Prix. The race was won by Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas with Charles Leclerc in second for Ferrari and Lando Norris finishing third for McLaren – his first podium in Formula One. Norris became the 3rd youngest driver to achieve a podium, which has since been surpassed by Andrea Kimi Antonelli at the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix.

The originally scheduled calendar for the 2020 championship was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Several Grands Prix were cancelled or postponed after the planned opening round in Australia was called off two days before the race was due to take place; prompting the FIA to draft a new calendar. The start of the championship was delayed until 5 July, with the Red Bull Ring hosting the Austrian Grand Prix as the opening round of the championship. Organisers of the race signed a contract to host a second round at the circuit on 12 July which was known as the Styrian Grand Prix. The back-to-back Austrian races would mark the first time that a country hosted back-to-back races in the same season since 1995 when Japan hosted the Pacific and Japanese Grands Prix. This would also mark the first time in the sport's history that the same venue and circuit layout would have hosted back-to-back World Championship races and the first time that a Formula One race weekend was held behind closed doors.

Twenty drivers representing ten teams entered the race. Scuderia AlphaTauri made their debut as a constructor, having previously competed under the name Scuderia Toro Rosso from 2006 to 2019. Esteban Ocon made a return to the championship with Renault, replacing the departing Nico Hülkenberg after being out of the sport since the end of the 2018 season. Nicholas Latifi made his competitive debut with Williams, replacing Robert Kubica who only raced for one season with Williams after returning to F1 following a serious rally crash in 2011.

Mercedes changed their livery to black instead of their traditional silver for the 2020 season. This was in support for the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement and a commitment to diversity and ending racism. Formula One launched a "We Race as One" initiative which focused on fighting the challenges of COVID-19 and global inequality. Rainbows would be displayed across the circuit and team liveries to show appreciation to key workers and individuals affected by the COVID-19 outbreak as well as being a gesture to bringing communities together. McLaren announced an updated livery for the 2020 season featuring a rainbow on the halo, rainbow colours on the sidepod and "End Racism" messaging.

Tyre supplier Pirelli brought the C2, C3 and C4 (designated hard, medium and soft respectively) compounds of tyres for teams to use at the event. These are the second, third, and fourth hardest compounds available of the five Pirelli produce. In recognition of the need to cut costs and to give Pirelli achievable targets due to the congested calendar, all drivers received identical tyre allocations getting two sets of hards, three sets of mediums and eight sets of softs.

Three practice sessions were held before the race; the first two sessions were held on Friday morning at 11:00-12:30 and 15:00-16:30 local time, respectively. The third practice session was held on Saturday morning at 12:00-13:00. The first session started with showers for 30 minutes, a few laps were set on the intermediate tyre before moving onto dry tyres. Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the session with a 1:04.816 on soft tyres, more than three-tenths of a second quicker than teammate Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton also topped the drier second practice session with a time of a 1:04.304 with Bottas trailing by 0.197s. The third practice session was much warmer than the previous sessions with track temperatures reaching as high as 49 °C (120 °F) compared to the peak track temperature of 36 °C (97 °F) from the day before. The session also saw the first crash of the season when Nicholas Latifi hit the barriers at turn 1 just after 45 minutes. Hamilton topped the session by posting a time of 1:04.130, 0.147s ahead of Bottas.

The qualifying session was held on Saturday afternoon after the third practice session and was split into three parts. The first part (Q1) ran for 18 minutes, at the end of this period the five slowest cars were eliminated. During Q1, the 107% rule was in place, which required all drivers to set a time within 107% of the quickest Q1 time, in order to qualify for the race. The second part of qualifying (Q2) ran for 15 minutes, after which the five slowest cars were eliminated. The third and final part of qualifying (Q3) ran for 12 minutes, after which the ten remaining cars had their grid positions set. The fastest driver of Q3 obtained pole position.