2026 Austrian GP Practice Round-Up: Antonelli's Friday Sweep, Russell's Saturday Reply

FP1: Antonelli and the Silver Arrows assert themselves on a chaotic Friday morning

Kimi Antonelli set the pace in FP1 for the Austrian Grand Prix, beating team-mate George Russell as the Mercedes pair headed McLaren's Oscar Piastri at the Red Bull Ring. Antonelli, who leads the Drivers' standings by 41 points, posted a 1m 07.796s which left the Italian teenager just 0.040s clear of Russell, with Piastri one-tenth further back. ^[1]

The session was heavily disrupted before it had barely begun. Max Verstappen's Red Bull came to a stop in the pit lane before being wheeled back to the garage, with the four-time World Champion complaining his car kept dropping into anti-stall; a second attempt 15 minutes later produced the same outcome, and Isack Hadjar was also unable to head out until just 24 minutes remained due to car issues. ^[1] A hydraulic leak also hampered reigning World Champion Lando Norris, with the McLaren driver confined to the garage until the final 14 minutes. ^[1] Despite those problems, Verstappen managed to place his car in fourth, while Lewis Hamilton was fifth in the leading Ferrari. ^[1] The session ended under a red flag as Sergio Perez's Cadillac came to a halt on track with a mechanical issue. ^[1]

FP1 top 5 (from official results):^[5]

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	1m 07.796s
2	George Russell	Mercedes		+0.040s
3	Oscar Piastri	McLaren		+0.117s
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull		+0.281s
5	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari		+0.665s

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FP2: Antonelli completes the Friday double as McLaren bounces back

Kimi Antonelli finished fastest during Friday afternoon's second practice session, finding an advantage over the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. After leading the field during FP1, the drivers returned to the track for FP2 at 1700 local time, anticipating marginally cooler temperatures at the Spielberg circuit. ^[2]

Antonelli set a fastest time of 1:07.014 in FP2 to finish 0.237 seconds clear of Oscar Piastri, with Lando Norris third as McLaren bounced back from a disrupted opening session. ^[7] Max Verstappen was fourth for Red Bull, 0.550 seconds off the pace, while Lewis Hamilton finished fifth for Ferrari on another difficult afternoon for the Scuderia. ^[7] George Russell could only manage a time strong enough for sixth place, falling over six-tenths behind his Mercedes team-mate. ^[14]

It was the first time Antonelli had topped the middle free practice session all season, and the first time a driver had done the Friday double in 2026. ^[7] Charles Leclerc, back in his SF-26 after handing over the keys to Dino Beganovic for FP1, could only manage eighth and was the slowest driver from the leading four teams. ^[7]

The session was again interrupted by issues for Cadillac, with Sergio Perez stopping early to trigger a Virtual Safety Car and Valtteri Bottas later crawling back to the pits with sparks and smoke coming from the rear of his car. ^[7] Bottas slowly trailed around much of the lap with sparks flying from his floor as it dragged along the track; after reporting smoke in the cockpit, his floor was extinguished after a small fire broke out. ^[7]

FP2 top 10 (from official results):^[5]

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	1m 07.014s
2	Oscar Piastri	McLaren		+0.237s
3	Lando Norris	McLaren		+0.325s
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull		+0.550s
5	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari		+0.597s
6	George Russell	Mercedes		+0.623s
7	Isack Hadjar	Red Bull		+0.744s
8	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari		+0.841s
9	Liam Lawson	Racing Bulls		+1.221s
10	Gabriel Bortoleto	Audi		+1.286s

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FP3: Russell strikes late to deny Antonelli a clean sweep

George Russell finally found a way past Kimi Antonelli at the Ring, edging his Mercedes team-mate by just 0.038s in final practice for the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix. ^[11] Antonelli had owned Friday, topping both FP1 and FP2, but Russell's late 1m 07.096s ended the teenager's run at the top and set up a properly contested Mercedes qualifying fight. ^[11]

Russell outpaced Antonelli to sneak into the top slot on a lap of 1m 07.096s, going 0.038s quicker. Hamilton was 0.115s back from Russell in third, ahead of the McLaren pair of Piastri and Norris in fourth and fifth respectively. ^[3] Verstappen wound up in sixth, with Leclerc, Hadjar and the Racing Bulls machines of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad rounding out the top 10. ^[3]

Lewis Hamilton showed the Scuderia's engine upgrades could make a difference as the weekend progressed, finishing the session in P3 and emerging as the lead Ferrari ahead of qualifying. Russell had been complaining of a suspected front suspension issue early in FP3, but in the dying moments found more pace than Antonelli to beat him to the top spot. ^[10]

FP3 top 10 (from official results):^[5]

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	George Russell	Mercedes	1m 07.096s
2	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes		+0.038s
3	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari		+0.115s
4	Oscar Piastri	McLaren		+0.248s
5	Lando Norris	McLaren		+0.264s
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull		+0.273s
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari		+0.356s
8	Isack Hadjar	Red Bull		+0.816s
9	Liam Lawson	Racing Bulls		+0.935s
10	Arvid Lindblad	Racing Bulls		+1.013s

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Pace picture: what the three sessions tell us (and what they don't)

Practice pace is indicative, not predictive. Fuel loads, tyre management programmes, and deliberate team strategies all distort the raw timesheets. The picture below reflects how teams looked across the weekend's preparation sessions only.

:::analysis Mercedes arrive at qualifying having topped all three practice sessions, first through Antonelli across both Friday sessions and then through Russell on Saturday morning. The intra-team gap is genuinely tiny: 0.040s in FP1 and 0.038s in FP3, with Antonelli ahead in one and Russell ahead in the other. That internal competition looks like a genuine qualifying fight rather than a scripted programme split.

McLaren are the most credible challengers across the full picture. Norris lost most of FP1 to a hydraulic leak and was therefore off the pace in that session, but both he and Piastri were comfortably in the top three in FP2 and within three tenths of the benchmark in FP3. The papaya cars are close enough to punish any mistake from the Silver Arrows.

Ferrari's weekend has a split personality. Hamilton has been increasingly involved, moving from P5 in FP1 through P5 in FP2 to P3 in FP3, and carrying visible momentum into qualifying. Leclerc's Friday was visibly more difficult, and though he improved to P7 in FP3 he still trails his team-mate heading into the session that matters.

Red Bull's picture is the most complicated. Verstappen's upgraded car was plagued by anti-stall in FP1, seat comfort problems in FP2, and a delayed programme in FP3; yet he still ended up P4 in FP1 and within three tenths of the FP3 benchmark in P6. The pace is there; the execution has been ragged.

Cadillac's weekend has been dominated by reliability, with Perez and Bottas both suffering repeated stoppages across both Friday sessions. Neither accumulated meaningful long-run data. :::

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FP1 mandatory rookie outings

After seven rookie drivers appeared in FP1 in Barcelona, a total of six teams fielded a rookie in Friday's opening practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix. Under FIA regulations, every full-time driver must make way for a rookie (someone who has started no more than two Grands Prix) in two practice sessions across the season. ^[4]

The six rookies and the race drivers they replaced were:^{[4] [6] [16]}

Rookie	Team	Race driver replaced
Dino Beganovic	Ferrari	Charles Leclerc
Ayumu Iwasa	Racing Bulls	Liam Lawson
Ryo Hirakawa	Haas	Esteban Ocon
Paul Aron	Audi	Gabriel Bortoleto
Luke Browning	Williams	Carlos Sainz
Jak Crawford	Aston Martin	Lance Stroll

Aboard Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, Dino Beganovic was the fastest rookie runner in ninth, with Haas regular Oliver Bearman rounding out the top 10. ^[6] Ayumu Iwasa was 15th in Liam Lawson's Racing Bulls machine, while Paul Aron deputised for Gabriel Bortoleto in the Audi