Verstappen's best lap time in Friday's first free practice

Behind the 24-year-old pilot, Monaco's Charles Leclerc finished second with Ferrari, and Britain's George Russell finished third with Mercedes.

A large amount of rain fell on the track during the night, but the water dried up during the early morning free practice of the Formula 3s, and later the Formula 2s could practice on dry asphalt. There were 40 minutes left in F1 practice when Lando Norris (McLaren) was forced to pull over suddenly because his car started to smoke around the seat. Because of this, the training session was interrupted with a red flag, but the clock was not stopped, so when the circuit resumed, the competitors only had 33 and a half minutes left to practice. Not long after, another red flag interruption followed, as debris was thrown onto the track, and training was suspended for the duration of the clean-up, which was able to resume after a few minutes.

Verstappen and Leclerc were fighting each other for the fastest lap time, although towards the end of the one-hour training session, the Mercedes drivers came closer to the Dutch driver's time, but Russell was still four seconds behind, and his team-mate, the seven-time World Cup winner Lewis Hamilton, was more than sixteen seconds behind. slower than the Red Bull star. In the last moments, Verstappen's teammate, Sergio Pérez from Mexico, got in between them, who was slightly more than half a second behind Verstappen's time.

Esteban Ocon (Alpine), who is preparing for the 100th race of his Formula 1 career, achieved the 12th lap time, while Carlos Sainz Jr. (Ferrari), who won his first F1 victory in Silverstone last Sunday, was only seventh.
This season, the weekend of the Austrian Grand Prix is a sprint round, so the starting order of the 100-kilometer sprint race starting at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday will be formed during the qualifying session on Friday (today) afternoon. The final result of the short race will determine the positions on the grid for Sunday afternoon's 71-lap Austrian Grand Prix.

Results, 1st free practice (leading group):
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1. Max Verstappen (Dutch, Red Bull) 1:06.302 min
2. Charles Leclerc (Monaco, Ferrari) 1:06.557
3. George Russell (British, Mercedes) 1:06.702
4. Sergio Pérez (Mexico, Red Bull) 1:06.839
5. Lewis Hamilton (British, Mercedes) 1:06.909
6. Kevin Magnussen (Denmark, Haas) 1:06.965

The additional program:
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time trial 17.00
Saturday:
2nd free practice 12.30 p.m
sprint race 4.30 p.m
Sunday:
race 15.00

(Source: autokalauz.co.hu; MTI | Image: pixabay.com)