Analysis: What we learned in Friday practice at the F1 Austrian GP

There were three impressive strands sewn into the two Friday practice sessions in preparation for the Austrian Grand Prix. The first of those emerged in FP1, as Formula 2 championship leader Alex Dunne took to the stage in Lando Norris' car; the Irishman, after a steady build-up into the session, put his car fourth in the times - just 0.069s off Oscar Piastri's quickest lap on the same compound of tyre.

There were caveats to Dunne's time that should be disclosed to ensure nobody gets too carried away; the Offaly-born racer's fine performance in practice could be ascribed to a little bit of engine mode, a little bit of fuel load, and a little bit of track evolution going his way. Still, in that moment, you've got to actually do the lap - and he rather put the cat among the pigeons in his maiden F1 voyage at the Red Bull Ring.

Dunne has attracted criticism, much of it unfair, due to his first-lap clash with Victor Martins on the opening lap of the Monaco F2 feature race. In that race, he was far too ambitious in trying to keep Martins behind at the start and would have been far better off backing out and hoping for a more favourable pit strategy. Instead, the contact between the two produced an almighty first-corner pile-up. The critique of the incident itself was fair, the social media abuse directed in Dunne's direction was not. 

Having kept his head down to reclaim the F2 championship lead in Barcelona, Dunne has redeemed himself with his F1 session debut; the ultimate redemption would be to finish the job on the final rung of F1's junior ladder. Following Gabriel Bortoleto to the title would also paint McLaren's young driver programme in a very favourable light indeed...

The second impressive strand was in Norris getting immediately on the pace in FP2 after missing the opening hour-long session. If we're talking about redemption, then Norris will aim to chart his own arc following his ill-judged attempt to pass Piastri in Canada. Much of the conversation in the hinterland between races related to how McLaren would deal with Norris, given that - on a different day - he might have taken himself and Piastri out of the race.

You could tentatively suggest that whatever the Woking team did, it's worked...so far, at least. Of course, qualifying will be the first test of that. Norris has flattered to deceive on Saturdays all year and needs to keep his eye on the ball in the final stages of Q3, if to demonstrate he's not as much of a bottle-job as many suggest. And if not, a glassware-filling role at the brewery awaits...

Norris retired from the Canadian GP after colliding into team-mate Piastri...but he followed that up by topping FP2 in Austria

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The third point? Max Verstappen's live turnaround of a misbehaving Red Bull RB21, conducted before your very eyes in glorious technicolour. Both Red Bull drivers looked ill at ease with the matte-blue machine around the company's home circuit, as the front end continued to be dogged by a consistent issue in gripping up. The drivers needed a few bites at the cherry on the steering wheel to hook the car up; at least the rear was consistent with the front, as it scarcely wanted to follow the driver's lead into the corner either.

Verstappen's reputation of a bullish and effortlessly quick driver - a refined Juan Pablo Montoya, if you will - hides the fact that he's incredibly studious when he needs to be. That's the paradox of Verstappen: he says he doesn't care about records, but knows all about F1's history. He says he doesn't care about anything except racing fast cars, but he's happy to dive head-first into the minutiae of making his better. 

With Simon Rennie engineering him this weekend instead of Gianpiero Lambiase, who's taking a well-earned weekend off, it was another challenge to get used to - but he's brought himself into play with his feedback. Knowing that the front end was still slightly off in FP2, Verstappen made a late request to dial in more front wing - something that offered a fleeting glimpse of some strong race pace. The Dutchman praised his stand-in race engineer, formerly on call for Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo, as Rennie neutralised any potential acidity produced by a temporary change in personnel.

The competition at the top is incredibly close. On the softs, Verstappen gave McLaren a run for its money, although the drop-off versus Norris on the mediums was notable

"I think so far today has been really good with Simon," Verstappen said of Rennie. "Of course, I've known Simon for a long time on the other side of the garage and I'm working with him also in the simulator. He has a lot of experience anyway. So it's been actually very, very good today. He was straight on it."

Norris and Piastri thus headlined FP2, with Verstappen 0.3s off Norris' pace, as McLaren and Red Bull found a little more progression on single-lap pace versus George Russell in the Mercedes - who topped FP1. But the Mercedes duo, which finished sixth and 11th in FP2, should have more in the tank; the pair set their soft-tyre laps earlier in the session than most, and the presence of Lance Stroll in the top four suggests that there's plenty of accessible time to find. That's not a criticism of Stroll, but the formbook does suggest that he was a little out of position.

FP2 long runs

What's intriguing about the Red Bull Ring weekend so far is that it suggests all three tyre compounds could conceivably offer something in the races; the choice of the C3-4-5 band of Pirelli constructions ensures that the soft tyre should have a place somewhere on Sunday afternoon; the recent flurry of races with the C4-5-6 tyres has largely rendered the softs an unfavourable selection in the races.

The soft tyre could come into play on Sunday

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That being said, with temperatures predicted to escalate over the weekend, the C5s might be less of an ideal choice come Sunday. At least, that was the opinion of Pirelli chief engineer Simone Berra; he stated that "it's less thermally resilient compared to the other two and it requires some more management, especially after 10-11 laps it starts to drop a little bit more than the two other compounds. With the lower temperatures today it was, in the end, quite a consistent compound. Considering the temperature we're going to face on Sunday, we don't really think it will be reasonable on Sunday."

Still, all three compounds were represented in the race runs - given the mix, we've decided to tabulate all the compounds together to determine how it's shaping up.

Average FP2 long run times

As ever, the competition at the top is incredibly close. On the softs, Verstappen gave McLaren a run for its money, although the drop-off versus Norris on the mediums was notable. That being said, once Verstappen got the aforementioned couple of turns of front wing flap (and a couple of cooldown laps for the tyres), he'd pumped in a couple of laps faster than the McLarens. Although it was only a sample set of those two laps, it does beg the question what the Red Bull could do if it possessed the same thermal management qualities of the MCL39.

Norris' stint was only very slightly quicker than Piastri's run on the hard tyre, if deleting the two slower laps that Piastri undertook across his run in the second half of FP2. But again, the effect of cooling the tyres on slower laps will confer an advantage to the subsequent tours - so they're not like-for-like runs in that instance.

Antonelli's run was not far off either, as the Italian's stint was about 0.2s per lap on average better than Russell's; the Briton noted that the team - at least on his side of the garage - fell away on the race runs, not helped by the abrasive track surface. He did suggest that this was consistent with the season, but was nonetheless displeased by the laps he'd logged.

After being baulked by traffic, notably almost having a clash with an apologetic Lewis Hamilton at Turn 4 during FP2, Antonelli was much happier with the race runs. "It felt pretty strong,” he said. “Of course there's still some areas to work on but I think that was really positive. Now, we'll work overnight in order to see how we can put all together for the single lap."

Antonelli was buoyed by the Mercedes long run pace

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On the long runs, Ferrari also reckoned it was in the mix. Charles Leclerc stated that the SF-25 was capable of "very similar lap times to the fastest guys", as demonstrated by the 0.1-ish deficit per lap to Norris on a comparable stint length on mediums. By comparison, Hamilton's soft stint was less impressive; he retreated to the comfort of the hard tyre towards the end of the session.

In midfieldsville, Liam Lawson's soft-tyre stint was almost worthy of our impressive performance strands; he was very comfortably in the high 1m09s before the degradation started to bite and tipped him into the realms of the 1m10s. As such, the team might be hoping that the softer compounds are viable, as Isack Hadjar was closer to the Aston Martins and Alpines on hard-tyre pace. 

Aston Martin's one-lap pace looked strong, but race pace remains weak, while Haas seemed to struggle on a single lap

Williams hasn't shown its hand in FP2, in either short- or long-run pace, although getting within 0.3s of the front-runners on mediums may well hint that the FW47s should be in points contention. As per usual, its battle is with the Racing Bulls duo, with Sauber again showing marked improvement within the midfield scrum. Aston Martin's one-lap pace looked strong, but race pace remains weak, while Haas seemed to struggle on a single lap.

Alpine propped up the long-run timing order, although Pierre Gasly says that a broken floor rather set him back across the FP2 session. Still, the Frenchman led the way within the intra-team battle, as Franco Colapinto's soft-tyre stint was not particularly stellar.

Racing Bulls and Williams appear to be leading the midfield heading into the rest of the weekend

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