McLaren dominated second follow on the Austrian Grand Prix, with Lando Norris beating Oscar Piastri to prime spot on Friday afternoon.
Norris was fast instantly regardless of having missed FP1 to present growth driver Alex Dunne seat time, and he was peerless when the sphere switched to the gentle tire midway by way of the hour. The Briton set three purple sectors to decrease the day’s benchmark to 1m04.580s earlier than embarking on his race simulation on the medium-compound tire. He eclipsed teammate Piastri’s finest effort by 0.157s, the Australian setting his time fractionally earlier and was subsequently deployed on a long term on the arduous tire.
Max Verstappen was third on the finish of the primary day of Pink Bull Racing’s residence grand prix, however the Dutchman was twice as removed from prime spot as Piastri, lapping 0.318s slower than Norris. Verstappen spent the remainder of the session in a race simulation with the gentle tire, with which he exhibited comparable long-run tempo early within the stint.
Lance Stroll was a shock fourth for Aston Martin, unexpectedly separating the frontrunners with a powerful lap on softs that put him 0.442s off the tempo.
Charles Leclerc was bumped all the way down to fifth after a scrappy session that noticed him commonly lose the rear axle, together with on one event that despatched him skating over the gravel at Flip 6. He ended the day 0.61s off the tempo.
George Russell, who topped FP1, had no reply for McLaren’s pace, the Briton lapping 0.649s slower than Norris.
Yuki Tsunoda wrestled his Pink Bull Racing automotive to seventh after dipping into the gravel at Flip 6. The Japanese driver appeared in poor health relaxed with the RB21, which appeared solely reluctantly aware of his inputs across the lap.
Gabriel Bortoleto was eighth for Sauber at 0.831s off the tempo and forward of Fernando Alonso within the second Aston Martin automotive.
Lewis Hamilton accomplished the highest 10 on a pessimistic day for the Briton, who lamented “for some purpose I’ve simply obtained no tempo” early within the hour earlier than setting a finest time 0.931s behind the benchmark.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli was a distant eleventh, 0.957s off the tempo. He ended up forward of Liam Lawson, whose session obtained off to a troublesome begin when the Kiwi reported his automotive was pulling aggressively to the appropriate, requiring him to return to pit lane for repairs. He rejoined to complete the day fractionally forward of teammate Isack Hadjar.
Pierre Gasly complained throughout this race simulation that his automotive was “damaged” and a “catastrophe” – although Alpine couldn’t see any points within the information – by way of Turns 1 and 6 after setting the 14th-quickest time forward of Esteban Ocon.
Williams teammates Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz slumped to sixteenth and seventeenth with mystifyingly poor single-lap tempo after having each completed inside the highest 10 throughout FP1.
Oliver Bearman adopted in 18th forward of Nico Hulkenberg and rookie Franco Colapinto.
