Brendan Lines July 11, 2020 09:00am

An incident at Turn 9 in the opening minutes of FP2 put Daniel Ricciardo out for the session while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen set the fastest time in free practice for the Styrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring.

Verstappen had some choice words as he was held up in traffic by Mercedes Valtteri Bottas on an early flying lap, but the Dutchman later put in a fastest 1:03.660s around half a second clear of Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time in free practice at the Red Bull Ring last week.

Max Verstappen closely followed by Alex Albon in FP2 – Image: Redbullcontentpool.com

“The car already feels better than last week, the balance is a lot nicer to drive and we have made a good step. It is only Friday Practice and of course it is too early to say how we are looking against Mercedes, but from our side I think we are quite happy,” Verstappen said after practice.

“We have tried a few different directions to understand the car a bit more and I think we are heading the right way which I’m pleased about.”

“We have to see what will happen tomorrow with the weather but otherwise we will find out where we really are on Sunday.”

Red Bull teammate Alex Albon still struggled with his car setup posting 7th fastest .777s off Verstappen’s pace.

Bottas (P2) and Hamilton (P6) are still a little off their scintillating pace last week, leaving the door wide open for Red Bull to capitalise, Hamilton suggested after practice the field might be catching up on Mercedes’ pace.

“It seems like the field is bunching up a bit more, but it’s always tough to read into what happened in practice. We’ve got some work to do, to look into the data and find out what’s going on,” Hamilton said.

The session was red-flagged in the opening 15 minutes after Daniel Ricciardo lost the rear end of his Renault, Ricciardo limped away for a precautionary visit to the medical centre.

With no time set for the session, the Aussie will hope the bleak weather for Saturday does not wash-out qualifying as the grid will be calculated off drivers FP2 times.

“Unfortunately, it was a very short second session for us. That first push lap was going quite well up until Turn 9.” he said.

“It was a mistake, it all happened very quickly so I’m not sure what went wrong. I turned in and just lost the car straight away.”

“I know these things happen with cars and in Formula 1, so it’s not out of the ordinary.”

“I’m OK, however, I feel bad for the guys. We’ll just move on. The car felt fine this morning, especially towards the end. The second session would have been interesting, so we’ll just have to find out our pace tomorrow or Sunday.”

Racing Point continued to flaunt its founded speed, after Perez topped FP1, he backed up his earlier effort with a 1:03.877s securing P3 favouring the soft (C4) tyres, teammate Lance Stroll was right behind Perez in P4 around four tenths off.

Lando Norris was handed a three-place grid penalty after overtaking under a yellow flag in FP1, P8 was his best while Carlos Saint put in more solid long runs on the medium (C3) and softs (C4) for P5 +.673s off Verstappen.

Ferrari again wrestled with getting pace as drivers Charles Leclerc managed to scrape together P9 just four hundredths ahead of Renault’s Esteban Ocon in P10, Sebastian Vettel was P16 nearly two seconds off the leaders.

Alpha Tauri driver Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kyvat are knocking on the door of the top ten finishing P11 and P12r respectively, Gasly did drop from P8 in FP1, but his FP2 time was nearly one second faster.

Williams opted for high-fuel runs, yet drivers George Russell and Nicholas Latifi were still able to post P15 and P17 ahead of both Haas cars.

Haas’ Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen rounded out the field in P19 and P20, Team Principal Guenther Steiner says the team has ‘a lot of work in front of us.’

FP3 begins tonight 07:30pm with Qualifying 10:30pm AEST.

Top featured image – Dan Ricciardo walks away from wrecked R.S.20 – Image: Fox Sports