F1 News: Verstappen tops only practice session for Austrian GP

Following an early stoppage on track in his Red Bull Honda, Max Verstappen on soft Pirelli tires turned a lap of 1m05.685s to top the only practice session for this weekend’s Austrian GP Sprint Race and Feature Race weekend at the Red Bull Ring.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Early in the session, Lewis Hamilton on hard Pirelli tires turned a lap of 1m06.254s in his Mercedes to top the times. Hamilton never made a soft tire run, but his teammate George Russell did. However, he was blocked by traffic on his fast lap.

With tires limited on Sprint Race weekends, teams were saving tires, and the thought is we have not really seen ultimate pace from anyone yet as teams were focussed on race setups most of the session. However, late in the session, teams began to strap on the soft red tires.

Lando Norris ruined his fast lap run with another mistake. Fastest in sector 1, he went off into the gravel on the downhill Turn 4 left-hander soon thereafter.

Oscar Piastri was 2nd quick for McLaren, 0.276s behind Verstappen.

The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. were 3rd and 4th, 0.370s and 0.443s behind the Dutchman.

Lewis Hamilton was an impressive 5th on hard tires in his Mercedes, just 0.569s behind Verstappen.

How quickly things can change right? Halfway through this session it all looked like doom and gloom for Verstappen as he had to stop on track with an apparent engine issue, causing the red flags to be shown.

But as soon as the session restarted, he was back out – apparently a sensor issue was what caused his problem on track. He ends FP1 top of the pile with the fastest time of 1m 5.685s – but we are yet to see what Lando Norris is fully capable of here at this track. Piastri’s P2 could be reflective of what the McLaren package can offer but there’s plenty of excitement to come.

2024 Austrian GP Practice Results