Mercedes quickest on hardest tyres in bruising Austrian Grand Prix practice

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton topped the time sheets and headed a Friday clean sweep for a Mercedes team who look to be the early favourites at the Red Bull Ring.

Although assisted by the additional DRS zone, Hamilton's fastest lap was just three tenths short of last year's pole position time, set on an early run on the soft-compound tyre, the most durable compound available this weekend.

However, his qualifying simulation on the ultrasoft tyre generated lap times close to his earlier benchmark, prompting conclusions that the performance difference between the compounds is smaller than expected.

Valtteri Bottas saw only marginal improvements on his qualifying attempts, with the Finn setting a time 0.176 of a second off the pace.

Third-placed Sebastian Vettel's best lap was set on the ultrasoft tyre, but the lead Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo registered his best lap on the supersoft tyre, less than one tenth of a second ahead of his ultrasoft-shod team-mate Max Verstappen, who completed the day with a damaged floor. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen finished at the foot of the lead group.

"I don't think it was a perfect day, we had a damaged floor," confirmed Verstappen after practice.

"Something broke off the inside of the floor, so my second practice session I had to run with a floor that was a little bit cut, let's say it like that.

"It's not from the outside sausage kerb, it's from the inside, I guess it was just vibrations of whatever.

"It was anyway an old floor. We'll put on a new one tomorrow, but today we had to be a bit limited on that, so that definitely compromised the downforce of my car a bit."

Mercedes' advantage appeared to extend into the high-fuel runs, too.

With both Hamilton and Bottas being able to trouble the low-1:07s and the high-1:08s on both the soft and supersoft tyres, Vettel looked to be the only driver competing with those times, with Raikkonen and the Red Bulls further back in the mid-1:08 lap times.

The Haas duo of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, looking to continue their strong pace demonstrated at Paul Ricard, finished in seventh and eighth. However, the latter endured a stop-start day, suffering from floor damage in FP1 and power-related issues in FP2, as well as being released from his pit box with a wheel not properly attached.

Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly failed to complete a qualifying simulation, but his earlier supersoft tyre run was still good enough for a place in the top ten. Mid-way through the session, the Frenchman ran over the higher yellow kerbs on the exit of turn nine and damaged part of his steering geometry, meaning he had to pull over and cause the only red flag of the session.

On paper, McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne completed a solid day for McLaren with a place in the top ten. However, the Belgian was one of many drivers pushing the limits of the run-off areas and shedding bodywork.

He damaged his front wing over the kerbs and lost running time in free practice one, but his team was involved in a careless near-miss with Vettel in the pit lane.

With Vettel already cruising down the pit lane, Vandoorne was released from his garage too early, causing the Ferrari to slam on the brakes. McLaren were fined €10,000.

There were other off-track excursions for the likes of Verstappen, Magnussen, Carlos Sainz, Marcus Ericsson, Gasly and Raikkonen among others during the day.

Major upgrades from Mercedes and Renault

In the 2018 development race, Mercedes come to Austria with some of the most noticeable changes to their car. Although they have remained tight-lipped on their upgrades, their cars have arrived with updated sidepods and barge boards.

Further down the field, McLaren and Toro Rosso are seeking to make strides in the midfield battle by introducing new front wings this weekend.

Of the power unit suppliers, Renault were the ones to bring the biggest updates to Austria.

Having conducted tests at the previous round at Paul Ricard, a 'qualifying' mode - a feature which has been one of the main advantages of the Mercedes and Ferrari power units for some time - will be made available to all Renault-powered cars from this weekend.

In addition to this, a long-awaited updated MGU-K has been brought to the Red Bull Ring. This will be used by both of the Renaults and McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne, with all other cars remaining with the old MGU-K for the time being.

All three drivers can take a new MGU-K penalty-free, but the remaining Renault-powered cars belonging to Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso would all receive grid penalties if they choose to take the upgrade, because they have already used their maximum allocation of two MGU-Ks.

“It’s available for all the cars that want it,” Cyril Abiteboul told Motorsport.com this week. “It happens that not all teams have elected to go to the new spec.

“It’s one that we’ve been long awaiting, but it’s a bit of a problem that some teams have elected not to use it, which means that they will continue to use the MGU-K of a previous technical definition, with a higher reliability risk.

"But that’s our philosophy, to accept the teams’ choice, having all the information.”

AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX, Free Practice

1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m04.579s - 37

2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m04.755s 0.176s 42

3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m04.815s 0.236s 53

4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m05.031s 0.452s 48

5 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m05.125s 0.546s 48

6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m05.265s 0.686s 42

7 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m05.429s 0.850s 38

8 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m05.559s 0.980s 41

9 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 1m05.758s 1.179s 31

10 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Renault 1m05.930s 1.351s 47

11 Carlos Sainz Renault 1m05.999s 1.420s 38

12 Charles Leclerc Sauber/Ferrari 1m06.096s 1.517s 30

13 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m06.133s 1.554s 43

14 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m06.199s 1.620s 29

15 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m6.273s 1.694s 42

16 Sergey Sirotkin Williams/Mercedes 1m06.326s 1.747s 49

17 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Honda 1m06.332s 1.753s 55

18 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m06.354s 1.775s 48

19 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Renault 1m06.429s 1.850s 33

20 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m06.626s 2.047s 44

By: Luke Murphy

All images: Motorsport Images