Max Verstappen topped the only Formula 1 practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix, beating previous headliner Carlos Sainz at the death with a 1m05.742s.
On a warm and sunny afternoon on the hills of Styria, Lewis Hamilton opened the session with a 1m09.021s, but Verstappen’s 1m08.094s soon broke him as the current championship leader made the most of the early stages of the session.
Sergio Perez pushed the pace with a lap of 1m07.595s to take the top spot and although Verstappen closed out the opening five minutes with a 1m07.145s, the Mexican recorded a 1m07.111s to continue the early tete-a-tete over fastest time – both circulating on the solid compound tires.
Verstappen hit back with a 1m06.961s to showcase Red Bull’s early duopoly at the home track, but that was interrupted by Fernando Alonso’s 1m06.656s on the yellow-walled Pirelli tires as the Spaniard flew to the top.
A scant 0.058s in hand proved enough for Verstappen to reclaim top spot before Hamilton clocked 1min 06.416s to pip his 2021 title rival.
The order remained relatively tight as the opening half hour approached, although the top five was later disrupted by the presence of Alex Alban on soft tyres, following Williams’ decision to sit out the first 20 minutes of the session.
As the session approached its final 15 minutes, more teams opted to explore the limits of the Red Bull Ring on soft tires in preparation for qualifying later in the day.
Lance Stroll shot to second, just 0.134s off Hamilton’s time on hards, but the top three quickly changed as Charles Leclerc went to the top on softs. Perez then moved up to second on the intermediate before the pair were beaten by Verstappen with a 1m06.084s on the medium set of tyres.
Sainz then recorded a 1m05.983s on his first time flying the softs, a tenth quicker than Verstappen, and took the checkered flag after the full hour with the Spaniard on top.
But Verstappen’s final lap was good enough to usurp Sainz at the end of the session, recording 1m05.742s on the medium tire after three build-up laps and setting a relatively calm opening sector.
Leclerc filtered through in third after beating Verstappen’s previous lap to sit 0.03s behind team-mate Sainz in the time order as Hamilton’s only run on soft tires was half a second off the pace .
Perez and Stroll were fifth and sixth fastest, with the Canadian running over debris earlier in the session but suffering no ill effects. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was seventh on the time boards and had time to indulge in a mild battle with Nick de Vries, who did not understand why the Dane moved on him coming out of Turn 1.
Alonso was eighth fastest without a run on the soft tyre, while George Russell’s ninth fastest time was set on the hard tyre. Zhou Guanyu completed the top 10, ahead of late starter Albon in the session.
Lando Norris backed up the table despite having the full fleet of new McLaren upgrades on his car, but was out of the car early and did not complete the final lap on soft tires as the team were seen tinkering with his front wing.