The Friday in F1 Austrian GP had its moments as McLaren has the edge but competition from Max Verstappen and George Russell remains high.
It was fairly clean on Friday in F1 Austrian GP at Red Bull Ring barring the run-off moments for few. It was hairy for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the gravel in FP2 but he was unscathed. The Monegasque is not too sure about qualifying pace, though, even if the race pace looked better.
Lewis Hamilton was not too happy on the radio, but post-session, he felt a bit better. Although, he doesn’t see immediate step with the updated floor that they introduced in Austria. It will be close in the pack as they aim to beat Mercedes at least, who were confused by their pace.
Both George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli felt better in FP1, but dropped ground in FP2. They don’t think they can fight for win, but podium is certainly possible with a Top 5 range. At Red Bull, it was once again Max Verstappen doing the heavy duty, albeit in a different run plan.
He had a change in his race engineer for the weekend, but it didn’t deter him as much. Pace wise, he felt he is there and thereabouts, while teammate Yuki Tsunoda did better from FP1 to FP2 but he still thinks he lacks a bit. Additionally, he doesn’t have the same updates as teammate.
It will be for a decent Top 10 result that Red Bull would want from Tsunoda. The Dutchman, though can challenge the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, as they expect. They felt good with the car, even though Norris missed FP1 for Alex Dunne – who did a good job. Leclerc too missed for Dino Beganovic.
Norris: “I think the car felt good from the off. Alex gave good feedback this morning after FP1 and he was on the pace straight away, so that was good to see. I think they moved the car in the right direction for FP2, and we just need to understand if we want more of that tomorrow, or a little bit less, or somewhere in the middle. Good steps in the right direction, but still a little bit more to come hopefully. I think as a team we seemed a bit more competitive. I think we definitely didn’t look that good this morning, so I think we did move things in the right direction.
“I think as always we are very quick in FP2 at times [and] we’ve shown a bit more pace than some of the others. I certainly think they’re going to catch up, Max is not far behind, and they [Red Bull] normally improve a lot into Saturday. I expect a good day tomorrow and I’m sure we’ll improve on some things, but it’s not as easy as maybe it looked today. I think it’s still going to be tight tomorrow, it always is, there’s no reason for it not to be, but we’ll work hard to make it as big of a gap as possible.”
Verstappen: “Yeah, for sure, but that’s how it is now. I think so far today’s been really good with Simon, of course I’ve known Simon for a long time on the other side of the garage and working with him also in the simulator. He has a lot of experience, so it’s been actually very good today. He was straight on it and it was nice. As for the day, didn’t have any big issues, but just lacking a bit of pace, a bit too much understeer in the car as well [in the] short run and long run, so that is something that we have to try and get rid of.”
Russell: “I mean first practice was definitely a surprise to us. Second practice we definitely didn’t have the pace like we did this morning. The quali runs and the race pace was a step worse so we need to analyse why that was. The tarmac here is pretty abrasive, it’s normally a two-stop race. That doesn’t really suit our strengths. As I said, this morning was a real surprise, this afternoon it’s probably a bit more in line with our expectations but still fighting to get back on the podium. But the top-five range is realistically where we’re at. The McLarens were mighty strong, especially this afternoon. I don’t really see that changing and that was the anticipation coming into the weekend unfortunately. We’ll do our best but I don’t think we’ll be fighting for pole this weekend.”
Hamilton: “Not spectacular. We had a problem in the morning with the gearbox, which was obviously difficult, frustrating for everyone in the garage obviously because the boys did a great job, kept topping it up. But you go out, you can only do one lap, and so we didn’t get the long runs. But I think we recovered okay with it, they did a great job changing the gearbox and getting us ready for FP2. Charles was six-tenths off, I was close to a second off, so not ideal. But I think there’s lots of learnings, so I think we will make some changes. Hopefully we can try and get a little bit closer.
“We won’t be at the front. A huge amount of work went on to bring the floor, but as you see it’s not necessarily changed our competitiveness. The car actually doesn’t feel bad, we’re just a huge chunk off pace-wise, so we need to look into that and that’s about it really. We just keep pushing, just trying to dial the car in more and see what we can get, but it’s obviously very close in the top 10 so a tenth could make a difference, so we’ll work towards trying to gain at least that over the night.”
The Top 10 featured different drivers across the two F1 practice sessions. Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto was a surprise feature in both the sessions. The Brazilian managed a consistent run with the updates, as teammate Nico Hulkenberg struggled a bit, especially in FP2.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll surprised as well in FP2, as he finally felt better in the car. Teammate Fernando Alonso ended up in a decent position with growing confidence. Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar too had a decent outing, unlike teammate Liam Lawson, who wanted a bit more.
The change in wind didn’t help Williams in FP2 after both Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz struggled on the soft compound unlike medium and hard, on which they did good. It was 50-50 for Haas pair, as both Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon felt they made a step in FP2, but it was not enough.
Historically they have done well in Austria and are able to make a jump from Friday to Saturday, which is what they are counting upon. Alpine went a bit down from FP1 to FP2, as both Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto did not feel good in the second session.
Bortoleto: “Today has been a really positive day. The team did a great job with the upgrades – they seem to be working in the right direction, and I am feeling more and more comfortable in the car every time I jump in. I have always loved this circuit; it has been good to me since F4, F3, F2 – throughout every step. From lap one today, it felt good out there. Of course, we are very mindful this is still Friday, and there are still things to work on here and there, like always, but it feels like we are building something, step by step. If we keep this pace, I really hope we can fight for my first Q3 of the season. We will be going through the feedback we gathered today, keep pushing and see what we can achieve tomorrow.”
Alonso: “I’m feeling better after the last few races. With the last two in the points, the car feels like it’s coming alive again. It’s still not quite in the right window, but we will see how we progress as we go into the weekend. It’s really close out there, so we need to nail the lap in Qualifying tomorrow and make sure our race pace is strong too.”
Albon: “Yes, we’re a little bit confused ourselves as well. It’s not feeling terrible up there, but it’s not feeling fantastic. We need to understand the wind change. We know that we don’t like certain winds which might have hit us in a non-favourable way. Also, we’re still okay on the harder compounds. It seems like when we put on the Softs we fall back. We need to figure that out. We need to experiment a bit in FP3 and we’ve always been able to bounce back to a certain point. The track should be much hotter tomorrow, which means it kind of resets anyway. For tomorrow, I’m confident if we can get the tyre working, I think we should have the car and we’ve got the race pace, so let’s see.”
Hadjar: “It was similar between FP1 and FP2 today. I felt a bit more comfortable in the car during FP2, but here at the Red Bull Ring, all the margins in the field are extremely tight. With just a couple of tenths more, it’s possible to gain more than a few places. It won’t be easy tomorrow to make it to Q3; it seems the Astons are faster than us at the moment, but obviously it will be important to put it all together and we’ll give our all to get through it.”
Bearman: “It’s been a bit of a tough day, struggling for pace. It’s very close on a track like this with a very short lap, so we definitely have some work to do tonight. All on my side, I wasn’t really driving as I should be, so a bit of work to do. Our high-speed performance was lacking slightly so that’s our main target to improve tomorrow. Alarm bells aren’t ringing yet as our trend recently has been to be better on Saturday than Friday, and we made a step from FP1, so let’s hope that continues.”
Gasly: “It was quite an up and down day for us and we definitely have some improvements to find. Every Friday we are talking about how tight the timesheets are and, on a short lap like here, it really is the case. One or two tenths of a second is the difference between six to seven positions it seems so it just shows how important it is to nail a lap and maximise every detail. I was generally quite happy with my laps in Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2. We have a few things to find overnight and it was good to assess what works and what does not. We suffered some floor damage in Free Practice 2. I was struggling with the car at the end of the session and now we know why. We will see what we can gain ahead of tomorrow.”
Dunne: “I don’t even know where to start. Super happy, I think it’s safe to say it went pretty well. I think we knew going through the session that the goal wasn’t necessarily for performance it was more to help out with the car, help Lando and just help the team improve as much as they can for FP2, FP3 and then onwards into the weekend. So to have the pace that I had and show what I’m capable of on the F1 stage is something pretty special, so massive thank you to McLaren and everyone for the opportunity. I’m extremely grateful.”
Beganovic: “It felt very good, it’s always very nice to drive an F1 car. Doing an F1 weekend is obviously even more special, and on top of that doing it in a Ferrari, even more special. It means a lot to me. This is my sixth year now [in the Ferrari Driver Academy], so it’s been a long journey and here we are doing the steps towards my goal, which is to have an F1 seat one day, and doing these programmes that we have in the Academy really helps me to show myself but also get a first taste of what it is.”
Here’s how FP1 in F1 Austrian GP panned out
Here’s how FP2 in F1 Austrian GP panned out
