Nico Rosberg topped the timesheets after the first free practice session ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend.
Formula One returns to Austria for the first time in 11 years and looks to be bringing plenty of action to the Red Bull Ring outside the small village of Spielberg.
There should be very little surprise at the fact that Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton rung in a 1-2 for Mercedes, 0.14s off Rosberg’s time of 1:11.295 posted on prime tyres. Both Hamilton and Ferrari’s Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso came within four-tenths of a second of demoting Rosberg. This may look good for Ferrari but given their lack of performance after their deceitfully good display during practice in Canada, it’s still way too early to predict anything other than a dominant Mercedes team.
Felipe Massa was fourth quickest for the Williams team, while McLaren’s Jenson Button edged ahead of the Force India duo of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg.
Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Jean-Eric Vergne rounded out the top 10.
Conditions were cool and cloudy with a few drops of rain here and there throughout the session. This meant that quite a few drivers made trips off the track with many of them making their debut excursions on the Red Bull Ring. Massa, Alonso, Magnussen, Grosjean, Bianchi, Bottas, Rosberg, Hamilton, Maldonado and Kvyat all had off-excursions after either leaving their braking too late (mainly in Turn 1 and partly due to a 10 km/h tailwind) or getting sideways.
It was however Sebastian Vettel who had the biggest moment of the session after running wide at the final corner and bouncing across the grass before being pitched into a high speed spin very narrowly avoiding contact with the barrier.
Adrian Sutil’s session ended prematurely after his Sauber suffered from a broken hose and Marcus Ericsson also only completed a few laps in his Caterham CT05 before stopping at the pit lane exit with smoke coming from his car.
Your full timesheet for the second practice session is below.
We’ll be back for FP2 and please do join us on Twitter for live commentary and chat throughout the race weekend.
