F1: Verstappen fastest in opening practice for Austrian GP

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen picked up where he left off last weekend, topping opening practice for the Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring, quicker than he managed last weekend in either Friday session although some of that is down to the softer tire compounds in use this weekend.

Verstappen’s lap of 1m05.143s was 0.266s faster than the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and 0.288s faster than the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. in third

Carlos Sainz Jr.

Red Bull began on softs and switched to the prototype Pirelli tires, on which Verstappen set the benchmark of 1m 05.5s in the first half of the session, before improving on softs to 1m 05.143s with 25 minutes remaining.

Valtteri Bottas was 4th for Mercedes while a hot rookie Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top-5 for AlphaTauri.

Driving for his job next year, Kimi Raikkonen was a surprise 6th for Alfa Romeo while a sandbagging Lewis Hamilton was 7th in the 2nd Mercedes, and ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez (P8), who set exactly the same time as ninth-place Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri.

McLaren’s Lando Norris rounded out the top 10 while team mate Daniel Ricciardo finished 12th, with the Alpine of Esteban Ocon between them.

No that’s not Lewis Hamilton driving Lance Stroll’s car. Stroll is running a purple helmet similar to Hamilton’s this weekend.

Practice 1 Results

POS DRIVER NAT. TEAM TIME
1 Max Verstappen NED Red Bull Racing 1m05.143s
2 Charles Leclerc MON Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow 1m05.409s
3 Carlos Sainz Jr. ESP Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow 1m05.431s
4 Valtteri Bottas FIN Mercedes AMG Petronas 1m05.445s
5 Yuki Tsunoda JPN Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda 1m05.474s
6 Kimi Raikkonen FIN Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen 1m05.586s
7 Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes AMG Petronas 1m05.709s
8 Sergio Perez MEX Red Bull Racing 1m05.726s
9 Pierre Gasly FRA Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda 1m05.726s
10 Lando Norris GBR McLaren F1 Team 1m05.880s
11 Esteban Ocon FRA Alpine F1 Team 1m05.980s
12 Daniel Ricciardo AUS McLaren F1 Team 1m06.181s
13 Lance Stroll CAN Aston Martin Cognizant 1m06.203s
14 Guanyu Zhou CHI Alpine F1 Team 1m06.414s
15 Sebastian Vettel GER Aston Martin Cognizant 1m06.444s
16 Callum Ilott GBR Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen 1m05.564s
17 Mick Schumacher GER Uralkali Haas F1 Team 1m06.583s
18 Roy Nissany ISR Williams Racing 1m06.683s
19 Nicholas Latifi CAN Williams Racing 1m06.978s
20 Nikita Mazepin RUS Uralkali Haas F1 Team 1m07.316s
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