Red Bull Ring F2: Mercedes protege George Russell leads practice

The 20-year-old Russell looked supreme on his way to a 1m14.159s benchmark, with brilliant rotation through the corners in his F2 2018 car - which appeared on rails for most of the session.

He did have one major moment, skipping over kerbs at the fast Turn 9 at the end of the lap when on for an even quicker time.

Alexander Albon, who has three poles in the series this year, was just over a tenth slower and Roberto Merhi finished the session third for his MP Motorsport team.

Sergio Sette Camara had top Carlin driver honours in fourth, while Nyck de Vries - winner of the last race at Paul Ricard - survived two off-track moments to stay within four tenths of a second of pacesetter Russell.

Lando Norris put the second Carlin entry in sixth, ahead of Charouz Racing System and Ferrari Academy driver Antonio Fuoco.

Artem Markelov had no fewer than four visits to the run-off areas on the Red Bull Ring circuit, most notably at Turn 9 where he hit a kerb that launched his car into a wheelie with the front two wheels suspended in the air for what felt like an eternity.

Luckily for the Russian, he tumbled back down to earth with eighth fastest overall.

Just 11 minutes into the 45-minute session, Roy Nissany moved over in front of Jack Aitken too soon on the straight after Turn 1, clipping the ART Grand Prix driver's front right wheel.

The damage to Campos driver Nissany's rear-left meant he wouldn't return to the session, while Aitken could only recover to ninth after a lengthy spell in the pits for repairs.

He had two further moments at the final corners, signifying there is more to come over a single lap from Aitken and his ART-run car.

Arden's Maxi Gunther rounded out the top 10, while his team-mate Nirei Fukuzumi was ruled out of the session early - stopping his car on the grass at the exit of Turn 4 with a mechanical issue with four minutes to go.

F2 secured extra track time for all drivers to attempt two practice starts after clutch control issues affected the cars heavily at Ricard.

DAMS' Nicholas Latifi was the only driver to stall across the practices.

Practice times

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	1m14.159s	-	27
2	Alexander Albon	DAMS	1m14.321s	0.162s	25
3	Roberto Merhi	MP Motorsport	1m14.418s	0.259s	24
4	Sergio Sette Camara	Carlin	1m14.510s	0.351s	26
5	Nyck de Vries	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	1m14.603s	0.444s	24
6	Lando Norris	Carlin	1m14.631s	0.472s	24
7	Antonio Fuoco	Charouz Racing System	1m14.649s	0.490s	24
8	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1m14.809s	0.650s	21
9	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	1m14.838s	0.679s	19
10	Maximilian Guenther	BWT Arden	1m14.845s	0.686s	25
11	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	1m14.853s	0.694s	28
12	Tadasuke Makino	RUSSIAN TIME	1m14.993s	0.834s	21
13	Luca Ghiotto	Campos Vexatec Racing	1m15.122s	0.963s	25
14	Nirei Fukuzumi	BWT Arden	1m15.318s	1.159s	21
15	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	1m15.359s	1.200s	27
16	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	1m15.401s	1.242s	26
17	Arjun Maini	Trident	1m15.488s	1.329s	26
18	Ralph Boschung	MP Motorsport	1m15.591s	1.432s	18
19	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1m15.796s	1.637s	21
20	Roy Nissany	Campos Vexatec Racing	1m30.443s	16.284s	5