An intolerable, sweat-soaked lethargy prevailed through the continent as the June heatwave kept Europe on its skewer, the daily rotisserie offering some respite from the heat at around 10pm. When the climate approached something reasonable, it was not long before the flames began to enthusiastically lick once more in the early hours of the morning.
There are those who revel in the heat: Aperol Spritz in one hand, terrible literature in the other, and factor 15 suncream barely posing as a garden fence for the skin-damaging ultraviolet rays to hop over. But when you’re strapped into a Formula 1 car, head-to-toe in overalls and with nary a parasol to duck below, the afternoon daze is difficult to cope with. When you’re hot, you’re sweaty. When you’re sweaty, you’re irritable.
It felt like the drivers were grumbling a touch more than usual through the Friday practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring. Max Verstappen’s seat felt wrong. Valtteri Bottas’ arm was uncomfortable. Oscar Piastri didn’t like his brake pedal. Isack Hadjar was even more irascible than usual. Nothing felt good, especially if you were a driver attempting to use a Pirelli C5 tyre for more than a single lap.
Even the cars were at their capricious worst; Lando Norris missed 45 minutes of FP1 with a hydraulics issue, and neither Hadjar nor Verstappen’s cars wanted to behave at the start of the session. Sergio Perez’s Cadillac was struggling to cope and switched off a few times across both sessions, as the sister car of Bottas ground its undertray so much that the titanium skidblock caught fire.
The brakes weren’t particularly happy either, as multiple drivers reported the pungent aromas of burning carbon deeper into their stints. The three hard stops at Turns 1, 3, and 4 led to a proliferation of lock-ups; it’s very common to see cars exploring the Turn 3 run-off as they misjudge the stopping distances needed when going uphill.
Not that any of this appeared to bother championship leader Kimi Antonelli, every bit as cool as his namesake Raikkonen, as he reeled off the fastest times in both sessions. The lad looks unstoppable at the moment, especially when juxtaposed against the other side of the garage; George Russell was second fastest in FP1, yes, but couldn’t match his team-mate when the wicks were turned up in FP2 and ended up sixth in the late-afternoon times. Two McLarens, a Red Bull, and a Ferrari separated him from his younger team-mate.
Antonelli seemed unfussed by the uncomfortably warm weather in Austria
Photo by: Pauline Ballet / Formula 1 via Getty Images
Russell mused that FP2 had been “challenging”, and was concerned that he’d shipped pace to the McLarens and Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari between sessions. “Straight out of the blocks in FP2, McLaren were flying, to be honest. Their race pace, their single lap pace looks pretty decent. I think the biggest concern for us is seeing the pace in McLaren – and Ferrari there as well.”
While watching the longer runs play out, it feels like Russell’s being a bit uncharitable to the Red Bull – I recall thinking that the upgraded RB22 looked pretty handy, particularly over Verstappen’s stint.
So, does Russell have a point? As is customary for our Friday practice analysis features, it is our duty to look into the race pace data and determine how it’s all stacking up thus far.
Average FP2 long runs
Pos
Team (Driver)
Av. Time
Laps
Tyre
1
Mercedes (ANT)
1m11.265s
8
M
2
McLaren (NOR)
1m11.467s
9
M
3
Red Bull (VER)
1m11.704s
11
M
4
Ferrari (HAM)
1m11.773s
8
M
5
Audi (HUL)
1m12.134s
9
H
6
Alpine (GAS)
1m12.423s
14
M
7
Haas (BEA)
1m12.536s
9
S
8
Racing Bulls (LIN)
1m12.584s
15
M
9
Williams (SAI)
1m13.197s
9
M
10
Aston Martin (STR)
1m14.377s
8
S
Note: Cadillac did not produce a representative stint in FP2
From the race pace evident across FP2, Russell seems to be in the ballpark with his McLaren call; Norris’ stint was 0.2s per lap slower than Antonelli’s on average over an almost equivalent length. For comparison, Russell only did a six-lap stint in FP2 at an average of 1m11.219s on mediums, but we have used Antonelli’s longer stint as the focus point here. Either way, this suggests that the Mercedes can sit comfortably in this 1m11.2s zone for the first part of a medium stint.
Norris was actually quicker at the start of his stint, sitting in the 1m10s, but the times began to tail off as the tyres began to give him a little bit less. One of McLaren’s current concerns relates to its overall tyre wear versus Mercedes; team boss Andrea Stella stated at the Barcelona round that “we are not as competitive as we were in 2025 in terms of tyre conditioning and tyre degradation”. Russell’s comments might be flattering McLaren a little bit, especially when the cars get deeper into a stint.
McLaren’s race pace appeared to have Mercedes sweating a little…
Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images
Ferrari and Red Bull seem to be evenly matched at this point, as the Prancing Horse has so far been unable to trot out a similar performance baseline to that seen at Barcelona. Red Bull’s vast upgrade package, including additions to the suspension aerodynamics, floor, and sidepods, are all aimed at bringing the RB22 much closer to those top-three teams. But the team was shipping time at Turn 3, related to the mapping of the powertrain and exacerbated on attempting to deploy out of the corner.
“It’s like the rears are grabbing, locking up and you lose all the support,” Hadjar explained. “It’s not a linear grip, it’s not nice. So you’re constantly guessing the grip. And then once you go back on throttle, the engine has to catch up and it creates wheel spin on exit. So it’s really, really poor. Just in this corner, I don’t know how much we’re losing, but it really feels bad.”
Verstappen reported similar issues too; on their fastest laps, the Dutchman appeared to struggle less with the problems at Turn 3 versus Hadjar through the corner, but it nonetheless cost both over a tenth when compared to Antonelli’s benchmark lap. Still, technical director Pierre Wache is confident that the team is a stronger footing now with the updates – even if these are not fully understood.
Ferrari, meanwhile, was struggling with sliding through corners. Traction seems to be difficult for all involved, and the nature of the Red Bull Ring makes it very easy to light up the rears on corner exit and create a bigger temperature delta between the tyre surface and the carcass. This creates something of a dangerous cycle, where the overheating tyre surface lends less grip through the corners, producing even more sliding and causing the tyres to grain. Degradation, per Charles Leclerc, is not too bad chez Ferrari – but it’s the mechanical wear on the tyre that could be a mitigating factor.
So far, the team hasn’t had much scope to demonstrate the worth of its ADUO-permitted updates to its powertrain. A new steel-alloy cylinder block should allow the engine to produce a more efficient burn when running at hotter temperatures and, although the Ferrari PU is still giving a bit away in comparison to the Mercedes powerplant, it doesn’t seem to be worlds away in straightline speed performance.
Comparing Hamilton’s best FP2 lap to Antonelli’s effort, it actually seems to be losing most of its time in the final sector where the engine performance is less of an issue. Perhaps it’s down to deployment out of Turn 8, or Hamilton taking a more circumspect approach to the final corners at the Red Bull Ring; either way, the time is there to find if Ferrari can smooth out the balance.
The hills are alive, with the sound of Verstappen conveying his dismay over balance issues
Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images
It’s all finely poised in the midfield for an exciting tussle, however; Nico Hulkenberg demonstrated that the Audi looks quite good on the hard tyre, while Alpine, Haas, and Racing Bulls were all close across the soft and medium tyres. Esteban Ocon’s stint on the hard tyre (average 1m13.340s) did pale in comparison to that of Franco Colapinto (average 1m12.473s), which should shuffle the Haas behind the Racing Bulls pair over an equivalent stint.
Audi, like Red Bull, chose to use the Austrian Grand Prix to introduce its own raft of updates towards the rear end of the car in an effort to extract more driveability. It seems to be paying off thus far, while Williams – which doesn’t have anything new for this weekend – is a little bit behind the other midfield outfits.
Aston Martin is saved from 11th in the race-pace rankings as Cadillac toiled with reliability issues; the American team offered flashes of improved performance with its own new package (and having apparently ditched its asymmetrical livery) as Bottas outpaced Pierre Gasly and both Williams in FP1 – but Perez faced electrical issues that caused the power to keep cutting, while Bottas’ floor-scraping exploits were down to a “build issue” with the front end of his car. Many of the Cadillac updates are aimed at also improving the MAC-26’s tyre degradation issues, although we’ve yet to see the scope of this over a race stint given the plethora of issues.
Bottas’ floor needed extinguishing after it caught fire in the pits
Photo by: Pauline Ballet / Formula 1 via Getty Images
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