Friday practice at the F1 Austrian Grand Prix took place in intense heat, with Mercedes setting the early benchmark as Kimi Antonelli impressed across FP1 and FP2. The afternoon session saw Lando Norris initially lead before Antonelli struck back to go fastest, while Oscar Piastri stayed close in the mix and several young drivers gained valuable mileage.
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FP1
Hot conditions awaited the F1 grid in Austria on Friday afternoon. This session was an extraordinary opportunity for some young drivers, like Dino Beganovich, who drove the Ferrari, Jake Crawford with Aston Martin, Ayumu Iwasa for RB, Luke Browning at Williams, Paul Aron by Audi and Rio Hirakawa in Haas during the 60 minutes.
Almost every driver used the medium tires of the first phase of the practice to test the limits. After 20 minutes Russell and Antonelli topped the chart – meanwhile Verstappen closed the gap at halftime.
By the end, Piastri geared up and came to third jumped over Verstappen, however the Mercedes duo was unbeaten in the opening session. The best youngster was Beganovich with 9th position.
At the end the first red flag was waving due to Perez’s technical issue.
FP2
The hot weather continued in the late afternoon. All drivers went back to their cars and real preparation started for the weekend.
10 minutes after the start Perez stopped due to another technical issue and a yellow-flag-period occurred with VSC.
Norris was leading the practice from the beginning and when the VSC ended the field could complete the first stints.
Around halfway Antonelli jumped to first and the flying laps started, which were opened by Piastri on soft tires. However Antonelli seemed strong ahead of Piastri and Norris. This time the Ferraris did not show strong performance, Hamilton in fifth was 0.6 tenth slower than the leadergroup.
The full results of the Free Practices according to FIA.com:
