The Austrian race weekend is the first of four Grands Prix in July with the British GP following next weekend before back-to-back races in Hungary and Belgium to see us into the summer break, which means it’s going to be hard for the drivers and teams to just get everything right every weekend.
Austria marks the second sprint weekend of the season and there have been a few changes from 2022 for this year. Here’s how it works: there was be an hour of practice, then we will head into Qualifying at 4pm where the grid for Sunday’s race will be set.
Saturday is essentially a standalone sprint day as there will be another Qualifying, known as the Sprint Shootout, at 11am, and this will set the grid for the Sprint Race later in the day at 3.30pm.
The green light was on in the pit lane and the only practice session this week was under way. We expected to see cars out on track immediately with this being the only 60 minutes the teams have to get their cars set up as they want them for the remainder of the weekend. Lewis Hamilton was the first driver to hit the track.
Max Verstappen set the benchmark time of a 1:08.094 on the hard tyres. All the drivers apart from the Williams’ of Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon were out on track. Last year’s P1 time was a 1:06.302 and pole position was a 1:04.984. Sergio Perez was then fastest as the drivers got up to speed but Lewis Hamilton was only 0.093s behind in third place, with Verstappen in between. The top three were all on the hards.
Track limits could well be a big issue this weekend in Austria. Last year there were a litany of tack limit violations and so we could see a lot of lap times deleted in qualifying later today and the Sprint Shootout tomorrow.
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Fernando Alonso went fastest with a 1:06.656 to go 0.305s ahead of Max Verstappen: the Aston Martin looked very smooth in the final two corners, so that was a good sign for them in view of the rest of the weekend. But just a few moments later, Max Verstappen was back on top as he edged in front of Alonso by 0.058s. Hamilton was third from Perez, Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon.
F1 race director Niels Wittich sent out the latest version of his event notes for this weekend: there’s guidance for drivers advising them, for safety reasons, to “keep to the right of the white line preceding the pit entry which starts approximately 50m before turn 9”.
Any part of any wheel crossing the white line is prohibited, so that could be one to look out for.
Meanwhile, the tyre rule changes that should ensure all 10 cars are able to take to the track in the final part of Sprint qualifying tomorrow, have now been approved by all 10 teams, with one having not been in agreement on Thursday.
Alex Albon took a while to come out in the Williams but he slotted into fifth with his opening effort of the day. Williams were the only team running the soft tyres at this stage of the first free practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix, which partly explained Albon’s lofty position in the standings.
With 32 minutes to go in FP1, most drivers were doing long runs to see how their car felt on heavy fuel and which tyres will be best for the race. There were some Qualy sims towards the end of the session to give us an idea of what the pecking order is like ahead of Qualifying later today. Fernando Alonso was testing the limits at Turn One as he outbraked himself and had to take to the run-off area.
17 minutes to go and here came the Qualy sims as Oscar Piastri went for a flying lap on the soft tyres. He went into sixth, although appeared to breach track limits at the final corner. More soft tyre runs came in the final part of the session. Soft tyres were on the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll and he slotted into second place, a tenth behind Lewis Hamilton’s benchmark and only a tenth ahead of Fernando Alonso’s medium compound time.
Pierre Gasly also had the soft tyres on and improved one position to P11 after a scruffy first lap on the red-walled tyres. Logan Sargeant then put his Williams into eighth with his first soft tyre effort. With ten minutes until the end of FP1, we finally saw the Ferrari cars: Charles Leclerc set a 1:06.209 to go fastest with his first soft tyre effort. But he didn’t stay top for long as Max Verstappen then went quicker by 0.125s and on the medium tyre as well. Sergio Perez had been a fraction slower than the Ferrari on the medium tyres. Soon after, Carlos Sainz went to the top on a 1:05.983 as Lewis Hamilton slotted into fourth and is 0.268s behind.
Ferrari came alive on these soft tyres with low fuel. Verstappen and Perez did their times on the medium tyres, whereas the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers have opted for the soft rubber.
An interesting mix of strategies seemed to be in play among the leading teams. Mercedes opting to do all their race run on the hard compounds suggested they were perhaps saving their medium tyres to be their preferred race tyre on Sunday. Red Bull meanwhile had been eating up their medium tyres and kept the hard tyres up their sleeve for Sunday’s race in Austria.
Chequered flag! And Max Verstappen popped in the fastest lap of the session with his final run. He put in 1:05.742 on the medium tyre after three cooldown laps to go quickest by 0.241s over Carlos Sainz’s soft tyre effort. Charles Leclerc had just slotted in behind his Ferrari team-mate with his final effort.
So here’s how the order ends up after that 60 minutes of practice:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Carlos Sainz
3. Charles Leclec
4. Lewis Hamilton
5. Sergio Perez
6. Lance Stroll
7. Kevin Magnussen
8. Fernando Alonso
9. George Russell
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