Antonelli leads the way in first Austrian GP practice

Kimi Antonelli led Mercedes teammate George Russell at the top of the time sheet in first practice for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Antonelli rocketed to top spot with his first representative lap of the Red Bull Ring, and the two Mercedes drivers took turns leading the field until the Italian teenager bolted on a fresh set of soft tires to set the benchmark at 1m07.796s.

Russell was more than 0.1s adrift with his first run on softs, but a second attempt on the red-marked rubber closed the gap to his teammate to just 0.04s at the end of the session despite complaining of a “weird” throttle problem during his first stint on track.

Oscar Piastri followed the Mercedes drivers closely, ending the hour only 0.117s off the pace despite battling brake issues throughout the session. Having radioed early that his brake pedal felt long, he later told his engineer that “it’s a lottery as to how much travel” the pedal had from corner to corner.

Max Verstappen, fourth and 0.281s off the pace, was similarly afflicted by car problems that had him stop in the middle of the pit lane shortly after first pulling out of his garage with a Red Bull that refused to engage the clutch without triggering the anti-stall system. The problem kept him garaged for around 20 minutes, but on track he described having “little feeling” for the heavily upgraded Red Bull Racing machine before complaining that “the whole car is shaking under braking.”

Lewis Hamilton followed in fifth, but the Barcelona winner was 0.665s off the pace for Ferrari. “It’s a real struggle at the moment,” he radioed around halfway through the hour.

Arvid Lindblad followed in sixth ahead of Lando Norris, who completed only nine laps after wasting the first 45 minutes of the session in his garage due to a hydraulic leak.

The reigning Austrian Grand Prix winner struggled to set a representative time on softs, losing his first lap to a slide out of the downhill Turn 4 and then being sent back to his garage thanks to a late red flag for Sergio Perez, whose car switched off on the run up to Turn 3, ending the session around a minute early.

Franco Colapinto was eighth for Alpine ahead of Ferrari stand-in Dino Beganovic, who took Charles Leclerc’s car to ninth and 1.258s off the pace, 0.593s slower than teammate Hamilton. Oliver Bearman completed the top 10 for Haas, 1.275s down on Antonelli.

Nico Hulkenberg led the way for Audi in 11th ahead of Isack Hadjar in the second Red Bull Racing car, like teammate Verstappen, Hadjar was delayed joining the session – by around half an hour – and when he did hit the track, he complained that he didn’t “understand the balance at all” of his upgraded car, leaving him 1.685s off the pace.

Valtteri Bottas took his heavily upgraded Cadillac to 13th and 1.725s off the pace in a relatively untroubled session relative to teammate Perez, putting him ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

Racing Bulls junior Ayumu Iwasa took Liam Lawson’s car to 15th ahead of Alex Albon and Paul Aron, the Alpine reserve driver standing in for Gabriel Bortoleto at Audi for the session.

Luke Browning completed 29 laps in Carlos Sainz’s car after the Williams reserve driver had his FP1 session in Barcelona written off with car problems that left him stuck in his garage.

Ryo Hirakawa, the 2022 Le Mans 24 Hours winner, took Esteban Ocon’s Haas car to 19th ahead of Jak Crawford, the Aston Martin reserve driving Lance Stroll’s car.

Perez ended a disrupted session 21st, his car frequently switching itself off and refiring itself until finally giving up the ghost in the final two minutes of the session.

Fernando Alonso was slowest in the session, 3.537s off the pace.

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