Rosberg set the fastest time in both free practice sessions of the Austrian GP, which was interrupted by a strong rainstorm and started and ended in dry conditions. Hamilton and Hülkenberg completed the top 3.
The rain threatened to fall over the circuit very soon at the beginning of the session, and it took less than 10 minutes for it to flood the circuit. In that short amount of time, Räikkönen spun and was very close to hitting the wall, while Rosberg had enough time to set the fastest time with a 1:07.967. Vettel and Ricciardo were 6 tenths behind that time, while Hülkenberg, Hamilton, Alonso and Bottas were more than 1s behind. Wehrlein, Sainz and Button completed the top 10.
The drivers went back on track with half of the session left. They used the intermediate tyre because some parts of the track were very wet and others almost dry. Ricciardo was the first one on track followed by his teammate Verstappen, whose car had to be fixed following his incident on FP1.
With 20 minutes to go, Vettel went back on track with the ultrasofts, and everybody followed him. It was Vettel himself who put an early end to the session when he spun and beached his Ferrari at the gravel in Turn 2. Rosberg was 1st with the time he set before the rain with the supersoft, followed by Hamilton with the ultrasoft. Hülkenberg, Vettel, Ricciardo, Sainz, Verstappen, Räikkönen, Bottas and Button completed the top 10.