Kimi Antonelli led George Russell in a Mercedes one-two in first practice at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Italian headed Russell by just 0.04 seconds and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren was just 0.117secs off the pace in third. Team-mate Lando Norris was seventh fastest after missing three-quarters of the session with a hydraulics problem.
Max Verstappen, running a major aerodynamic upgrade on the Red Bull, was fourth, 0.281secs behind Antonelli.
Lewis Hamilton, winner of the last race in Spain and with an engine upgrade in his Ferrari, was 0.665secs off the pace. The seven-time champion did not sound happy with his car in the brief radio transmission that was broadcast.
Briton Arvid Lindblad was sixth for Racing Bulls, and behind Norris Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was eighth, ahead of Swede Dino Beganovic in Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
Briton Oliver Bearman completed the top 10 in the Haas.
The weekend is a potentially important one for Ferrari in terms of proving whether they can continue their challenge to Mercedes.
The team have been careful to say that the engine upgrade introduced in Austria is not enough to close the gap to the Mercedes on power.
But the question is whether, in tandem with the aerodynamic development introduced in Spain, it is sufficient to allow them to compete with Mercedes on a power-sensitive circuit such as this, on which they have not yet been competitive this season.
McLaren chose not to run a new rear wing that had been scheduled to be used after deciding it needed further preparation work.
The wing is in the style of the ones introduced by Ferrari and Red Bull, meaning it opens into straight-line mode by rotating around an axis, rather than flipping open from the front in the manner of a traditional drag reduction system (DRS) overtaking aid.
Briton Luke Browning had his second consecutive outing for Williams in his role as reserve driver, in Carlos Sainz’s car. He ended up 18th fastest, two places and just over 0.3secs behind regular race driver Alex Albon, which team boss James Vowles described as “a good effort”.
