28/06/2025 13:39
Lando Norris continued his domination of Austrian Grand Prix
practice to tee himself up for qualifying, although the McLaren
driver faces a stern challenge from team-mate Oscar Piastri and Red
Bull's Max Verstappen. After missing FP1 to allow 19-year-old
Irishman Alex Dunne an F1 debut for the team, Norris was
comfortably quickest in FP2 ahead of Piastri. It was a case of deja
vu for final practice, with Norris posting a time of 1:04.324s,
just 0.010s adrift of Max Verstappen's pole time from last year.
Piastri again had to settle for second on the timesheet, 0.118s
adrift, with Verstappen third fastest, 0.210s down. The session
ended for a moment of consternation for Verstappen. At one point he
was forced to swerve out of the way of incoming Pierre Gasly in his
Alpine through Turn 10. The Frenchman was not happy. Soon after,
Verstappen then spun through 360 degrees in the same corner, but
was as cool as a cucumber over the radio with a message of, 'Yeah!
A little 360!'. Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton
finished fourth and fifth. Norris takes charge Following a
four-minute lull before the first car took to the track, it was
Verstappen who set the opening time with a 1:06.131s a few minutes
layer, albeit on a set of hard tyres he needed to burn off given
the sets available to him coming into the session. After 10
minutes, Alpine's Franco Colapinto was the only other driver to
have posted a time, however, 1.385s adrift of Verstappen on the
medium rubber. Following a couple of cool-down laps for Verstappen,
he upped the ante on his white-striped Pirellis with a lap of
1:05.818s before radioing through that his RB21 was "nervous" and
"snappy" on occasion in "getting back on throttle". On soft tyres,
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda popped up into second on the
timesheet, 0.110s adrift before the Dutchman stretched his
advantage on another hot lap on the hards by 0.360s. It was
shortlived, though, as Friday pacesetter Norris moved ahead by
0.156s on softs. A follow-up lap after cooling his tyres saw him
set a superb pace with a 1:04.888s, three-tenths slower than his
leading lap less than 24 hours previously. After a difficult Friday
for Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton lifted himself into second, 0.380s
behind Norris beyond which the running settled down for a period as
the teams and drivers geared themselves up for the end-of-session
qualifying simulation laps. Leclerc managed to split Norris and
Hamilton with 22 minutes remaining with a lap of 1:05.157s, before
Russell edged ahead of the Monégasque by 0.035s. With 15 minutes
remaining, and after a small mistake into Turn 1 that forced Norris
to cool down before going again, he set a superb lap of 1:04.324s,
just 0.010s behind Verstappen's pole time from last year. Piastri,
following his run into the gravel out of Turn 9, returned to the
circuit and regained his composure with a time 0.118s behind
Norris, who seemed set to go even quicker with a purple 16.2s first
sector only to make an error into Turn 3 with a slide over the
kerb. Moments beforehand, on his first push lap on soft tyres,
Verstappen managed to get within two-tenths of a second of Norris,
with Leclerc a quarter of a second back in fourth. The closing
moments were mistake riddled, notably for Racing Bull's Isack
Hadjar who also spun out of Turn 10, as well as four-time F1
champion Verstappen, whilst Tsunoda spun out of Turn 1. Behind the
leading quintet, Russell and team-mate Kimi Antonelli were sixth
and seventh respectively, followed by Aston Martin's Lance Stroll,
Tsunoda and Stake's Gabriel Bortoleto, who finished 0.858s down.
Hadjar was slowest of all, 1.699s off the pace.
