FP2: Mercedes maintains narrow advantage

By on

Lewis Hamilton made it a perfect Friday for him and Mercedes as he also topped the second free practice of the day in Austria. On the hardest tyre available, he set his best time, topping team mate Valtteri Bottas who ended up second fastest. Sebastian Vettel was the closest non-Mercedes driver in third, 0.236s off the pace setter.

As ever though as Austria, partly thanks to such a short circuit, the gaps were small, with the top 10 covered in less than a second. Lance Stroll, slowest of the session, was hardly more than 2 seconds off the pace.

Vettel in third and Raikkonen in 6th saw Ferrari do well, sandwishing the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. The Haas duo behind them were the best out of the big three teams in front.

Many drivers seemed to have trouble keeping their cars on track, with cars seen going round the kerbs of hard over them. For Pierre Gasly's Toro Rosso, it was just a bit too much to take, with the front suspension giving up during a rough ride over the sausage kerbs. The Frenchman parked his car in the gravel, but later in the session returned nevertheless, thanks to the swift repair work of the Toro Rosso mechanics. Gasly rounded up the session in 9th, making it positive after all.

McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne completed the top 10 as Fernando Alonso ended up down the pecking order. The team continued to experiment in order to find out what is actually going wrong with the aerodynamics of the car.

Results

Pos.No.DriverCarTimeGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:04.579-37
277Valtteri BottasMercedes1:04.755+0.176s42
35Sebastian VettelFerrari1:04.815+0.236s53
43Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing Tag Heuer1:05.031+0.452s48
533Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing Tag Heuer1:05.125+0.546s48
67Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:05.265+0.686s42
78Romain GrosjeanHaas Ferrari1:05.429+0.850s38
820Kevin MagnussenHaas Ferrari1:05.559+0.980s41
910Pierre GaslyScuderia Toro Rosso Honda1:05.758+1.179s31
102Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren Renault1:05.930+1.351s47
1155Carlos SainzRenault1:05.999+1.420s38
1216Charles LeclercSauber Ferrari1:06.096+1.517s30
1331Esteban OconForce India Mercedes1:06.133+1.554s43
149Marcus EricssonSauber Ferrari1:06.199+1.620s29
1527Nico HulkenbergRenault1:06.273+1.694s42
1635Sergey SirotkinWilliams Mercedes1:06.326+1.747s49
1728Brendon HartleyScuderia Toro Rosso Honda1:06.332+1.753s55
1811Sergio PerezForce India Mercedes1:06.354+1.775s48
1914Fernando AlonsoMcLaren Renault1:06.429+1.850s33
2018Lance StrollWilliams Mercedes1:06.626+2.047s44