Jak Crawford Returns to the Red Bull Ring for Aston Martin FP1, Two Years After His First F1 Test There

• Aston Martin has confirmed Jak Crawford will drive Lance Stroll’s AMR26 in opening practice at the Austrian Grand Prix.
• It will be the American’s fourth FP1 outing for the team and the second of Aston Martin’s four mandated rookie sessions in 2026.
• Crawford has now logged more than 3,800 kilometres in Formula One machinery, the mileage that keeps a young driver ready if a race seat opens up.

Jak Crawford is heading back to the Red Bull Ring, and for the young American it is a return loaded with meaning. Aston Martin has confirmed that its Third Driver will take over Lance Stroll’s AMR26 for Free Practice One at the Austrian Grand Prix, stepping into a race weekend cockpit at a circuit he knows better than most on the calendar.

The outing ticks a procedural box, since teams must run a rookie in four practice sessions across the season. It is also another quiet step in a long apprenticeship that has kept Crawford on the edge of Formula 1 without yet handing him a full-time seat.

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A return to where it began

The session carries a neat symmetry. The Red Bull Ring is where Crawford first sampled an Aston Martin Formula 1 car, driving the AMR22 there in June 2024. Almost exactly two years on, he climbs back into the team’s current machine at the same Austrian venue.

“It’s great to have another opportunity to drive the AMR26 during a race weekend,” Crawford said. “Austria is a circuit I know well and it’s quite special to be returning to the Red Bull Ring with the team, almost two years after my first test in an Aston Martin F1 car.”

He knows the layout from the junior categories too, having raced there in FIA Formula 3 and Formula 2 and claimed victories in both. That familiarity should let him spend less time learning the track and more time delivering the feedback the team is chasing.

The long apprenticeship of a third driver

Crawford has become an integral part of Aston Martin’s driver development programme since that first test. The team confirmed him as Third Driver for 2026 back in October 2025, and he has since racked up more than 3,800 kilometres in Formula One machinery, a tally that places him among the most experienced young drivers outside the current grid.

Much of his year is spent away from the spotlight, logging hours in the simulator at Silverstone and supporting the race team between events. He completed a Pirelli tyre test with Aston Martin in Barcelona earlier this week, the kind of unglamorous work that keeps a reserve driver sharp and useful.

This will be his fourth FP1 appearance for the team and his second of the 2026 season after running in Japan. It also represents the second of Aston Martin’s four mandated rookie practice sessions for the year.

What the team wants from the session

For Aston Martin, the run is as much an evaluation as it is a development exercise. Chief Trackside Officer Mike Krack framed it as a measuring stick for a driver the team rates highly.

“Jak continues to play an important role as Third Driver, and this FP1 session is another valuable step in that process,” Krack said. “He has been heavily involved in our simulator programme throughout the season and recently completed productive running during the Pirelli tyre test in Barcelona. Austria provides another opportunity for us to evaluate his progress in a race weekend environment while gathering valuable data for the team.”

Crawford, for his part, is treating the hour as a chance to convert all those simulator miles into something tangible. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the simulator this season supporting the team and recently completed the tyre test in Barcelona, so I’m looking forward to applying that work on track,” he said. “Every opportunity in a Formula One car is valuable, and I’ll be focused on delivering useful feedback and maximising the session for the team.”

The American waiting in the wings

Crawford sits within a broader story that the sport has been watching closely. American interest in Formula 1 has surged, and a homegrown talent knocking on the door of a race seat is exactly the kind of narrative the championship has been hoping to build.

He has done the junior work to back up the hype, with feature wins in Formula 2 at venues including Monaco, Silverstone and Baku, races he later described as among the most dramatic of his career. The next step, a full-time drive, remains out of his hands and tied to the slow churn of the driver market.

For now, the path runs through sessions exactly like this one. An hour in Austria, a stack of data for the engineers, and another reminder to the paddock that the young American is ready whenever the call comes.

What an FP1 hour really involves

From the outside, a single hour of practice can look like a token run. Inside the team, it is anything but. Rookie sessions are tightly scripted, with engineers loading a young driver’s programme with tyre evaluation, setup checks and aero readings that feed straight into the weekend for the regular race driver.

Crawford’s task in Austria will be to hit his marks, protect the car, and hand back clean, consistent data that Stroll and the engineers can use the moment he climbs out. There are no points on offer and little glory, but a tidy, productive hour can quietly raise a reserve driver’s standing inside a team that is constantly assessing its options.

It is also a rare chance to be measured against the real benchmark. Simulator laps and tyre tests only reveal so much. Running in the same conditions as the rest of the grid, on a live race weekend, is where a young driver shows whether the promise translates. Crawford has done it three times already, and each outing adds to the case he is quietly building.

For a young driver still waiting on his shot, that steady accumulation of trust is the whole game. Race seats do not open often, and when they do, teams turn to the names they already know can deliver. Every clean FP1 and every useful debrief keeps Crawford near the front of that queue.

The Red Bull Ring will test him too. It is short, fast and punishing on brakes, a lap of barely more than a minute that leaves little room for error. For a driver running limited mileage, stringing together clean laps there in race conditions is a genuine challenge, and a strong showing would resonate well beyond a single Friday morning.

It helps that Crawford arrives with momentum. He closed last year with a winter test in Abu Dhabi alongside Stoffel Vandoorne, and the kilometres have kept building since. So has the argument that he belongs on the grid sooner rather than later, an argument that another tidy Austrian outing would only strengthen.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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