At a certain point, Max Verstappen exiting the last corner found his Red Bull-Honda grumbling. He really didn’t want to continue. Verstappen stopped next to the pit wall, turned off the engine and was recovered by the track marshals. After a while, it was sent back to the track, everything was reset, the RB20 started working wonderfully again, allowing Verstappen to set, with the soft tyres, the first time of Spielberg’s only free session of the weekend whose format includes the sprint qualification and the sprint race. A notable show of strength for Red Bull as it finds itself competing on the circuit owned by its own brand.
Verstappen left Oscar Piastri 3 tenths behind with the increasingly convincing McLaren-Mercedes, which tested a new front wing by carrying out comparison tests. Lando Norris made a mistake on his final lap with the soft tyres, taking a stroll in the gravel at turn 4, but he would have certainly been up there. Three and a half tenths was the gap to the first Ferrari, that of Charles Leclerc. And on such a short track, just over a minute, that’s a lot.
The performance of Mercedes was noteworthy, fifth with Lewis Hamilton who always ran with the hard Pirelli tyres. George Russell had to abandon his fastest lap on the soft tires as it was slowed down by a distracted Valtteri Bottas. On the hard tyres, it must be said that Mercedes was very fast. Esteban Ocon’s Alpine-Reanult entered the top 10, a good sixth ahead of Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin-Mercedes with Fernando Alonso in tenth. Yuki Tsunoda did well, ninth with Racing Bulls-Honda. For him a moment of fear when Alexander Albon did not see him arriving at full speed and moved towards him.
Friday, June 28, 2024, free
1 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull-Honda) – 1’05″685 – 28 giri
2 – Oscar Piastri (McLaren-Mercedes) – 1’05″961 – 32
3 – Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 1’06″055 – 31
4 – Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) – 1’06″128 – 31
5 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 1’06″254 – 39
6 – Esteban Ocon (Alpine-Renault) – 1’06″297 – 30
7 – Lance Stroll (Aston Martin-Mercedes) – 1’06″384 – 27
8 – George Russell (Mercedes) – 1’06″386 – 32
9 – Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls-Honda) – 1’06″579 – 30
10 – Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin-Mercedes) – 1’06″603 – 30
11 – Pierre Gasly (Alpine-Renault) – 1’06″734 – 28
12 – Sergio Perez (Red Bull-Honda) – 1’06″783 – 24
13 – Lando Norris (McLaren-Mercedes) – 1’06″880 – 30
14 – Guan Yu Zhou (Sauber-Ferrari) – 1’06″919 – 28
15 – Valtteri Bottas (Sauber-Ferrari) – 1’06″925 – 29
16 – Daniel Ricciardo (Racing Bulls-Honda) – 1’06″962 – 31
17 – Nico Hulkenberg (Haas-Ferrari) – 1’06″966 – 31
18 – Alexander Albon (Williams-Mercedes) – 1’06″955 – 28
19 – Kevin Magnussen (Haas-Ferrari) – 1’07″145 – 31
20 – Logan Sargeant (Williams-Mercedes) – 1’07″259 – 29
