With a short lap, very few corners and plenty of time spent on full throttle, the Red Bull Ring tends to close up the gaps between the cars, meaning that it’s important to get every detail right to make the difference.

This was the case during both free practice sessions, held in cool and cloudy conditions, with similar temperatures predicted for the rest of the weekend.

Following overnight rain, the drivers used only the slick tyres, with all three compounds seen out on track today. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton went fastest on the ultrasoft tyre in the morning session, but with more rubber on the track in the afternoon he was able to beat his benchmark using the soft tyre.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“The performance gaps between the three compounds here are quite small, as is to be expected on such a short track, where the cars are very close to one another. This means of course that the tiniest detail counts, and the teams have been pushing hard to get the set-up exactly right. The cool conditions and the overnight rain from yesterday have also contributed to quite a high degree of track evolution, with a few drivers going off the line. As is often the case here, some drivers have fallen foul of the kerbs as well. Adapting the cars to the track temperature has been a key part of the work today, in conjunction with the usual assessment of tyres on both high and low fuel loads in these conditions. With everything so finely-balanced, strategy could make an important difference, so the teams will be studying tonight’s data particularly carefully.”

FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME   	  COMPOUND
Hamilton 	1m04.839s ULTRASOFT NEW
Bottas		1m04.966s ULTRASOFT NEW
Verstappen 	1m05.072s ULTRASOFT NEW

FREE PRACTICE 2 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 	  COMPOUND
Hamilton 	1m04.579s SOFT NEW
Bottas		1m04.755s ULTRASOFT NEW
Vettel 		1m04.815s ULTRASOFT NEW

FP1 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	  TIME
ULTRASOFT 	Hamilton  1m04.839s
SUPERSOFT 	Hamilton  1m05.525s
SOFT 		Ricciardo 1m05.571s

FP2 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	  TIME
ULTRASOFT 	Hamilton  1m04.649s
SUPERSOFT 	Bottas    1m04.767s
SOFT 		Hamilton  1m04.579s

MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	   LAPS
ULTRASOFT 	Hartley    33
SUPERSOFT 	Sirotkin   30
SOFT 		Verstappen 28

TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
			SOFT	SUPERSOFT ULTRASOFT
Kms driven* 		1142 	1972 	  3426
Sets used overall** 	14 	24 	  42

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.