Max Verstappen experienced a moment of concern during the only free practice session of the Austrian Grand Prix, when his car stopped on the start/finish straight, causing a red flag. Verstappen described it as an “engine failure” and parked the car against the pit wall. With the help of track marshals, the problem was quickly resolved and Verstappen was able to get back on track. He was in third place for most of the session, but improved his time with soft tires during a qualifying simulation lap, finishing 0.276s ahead of McLaren driver Oscar Piastri.
Sergio Perez, Verstappen’s teammate, struggled and finished in 12th place. McLaren made changes to the front wing and suspension, with Piastri using the new front wing and Lando Norris initially using the old design for comparison. McLaren switched to soft tires for their qualifying simulation, and Norris appeared ready to challenge Verstappen’s time, but made a mistake in the downhill right turn at Turn 4. Despite this, McLaren showed strong underlying pace.
Mercedes had a good performance, with Lewis Hamilton leading on hard tires during race preparation work. Hamilton chose not to use soft tires and finished fifth overall. George Russell, Hamilton’s teammate, had his lap interrupted when he encountered Zhou Guanyu’s Sauber at Turn 4. Despite this setback, Mercedes showed promising pace for the sprint qualifying.
Ferrari appeared to be the fourth fastest team, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz initially occupying the top two positions during their qualifying simulations. However, they likely would have been surpassed by the Mercedes and Norris drivers if they had completed proper qualifying simulations with soft tires.
Esteban Ocon, from Alpine, was the fastest among the midfield teams, closely followed by Lance Stroll, from Aston Martin. Yuki Tsunoda had a challenging session but still managed to finish in ninth place. Red Bull introduced a major upgrade in Barcelona that didn’t meet expectations, resulting in the team using different specifications for Daniel Ricciardo and Tsunoda. Ricciardo finished in 16th place, but Tsunoda’s performance and the team’s conclusion of the program with varied specifications were positive signs.
Sauber, Haas, and Williams had the slowest cars in the session, with a small time difference of 1.310s separating the fastest and slowest cars at the Red Bull Ring.
