Mercedes set the pace in the first practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix, with only Ferrari able to get within one second of them.
Nico Rosberg headed the times with a lap of 1’10.401 which he set in the opening half-hour of the session after a sustained run on the soft compound tyres. Team mate Lewis Hamilton was three-tenths of a second adrift after complaining of vibrations on his second set of Pirellis.
Ferrari showed some encouraging pace with Kimi Raikkonen a further three-tenths of a second away from Hamilton. But the team’s other car only managed four laps before pulling over with a suspected gearbox problem.
There were problems for the team in the pits as well: team principal Maurizio Arrivabene was almost struck by the Williams of Felipe Massa as he crossed the fast lane.
McLaren also endured another troubled session. Fernando Alonso crawled back into the pits after his first run, and although he was able to return to the track later on he had to cope with very poor gear shifts.
Jenson Button in the other car reported problems getting the tyres up to temperature. But he was far from the only driver with this problem as several runners struggled for grip in cool conditions on a track with little rubber laid down on it.
Late in the session Valtteri Bottas took fourth place and Felipe Nasr put his Sauber a promising fifth.
Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | Best lap | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’10.401 | 36 | |
2 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’10.709 | 0.308 | 28 |
3 | 7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’11.028 | 0.627 | 22 |
4 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 1’11.452 | 1.051 | 26 |
5 | 12 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’11.633 | 1.232 | 28 |
6 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull-Renault | 1’11.642 | 1.241 | 31 |
7 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-Renault | 1’11.724 | 1.323 | 29 |
8 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’11.825 | 1.424 | 38 |
9 | 19 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1’11.890 | 1.489 | 29 |
10 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’11.905 | 1.504 | 37 |
11 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’11.948 | 1.547 | 32 |
12 | 13 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Mercedes | 1’12.004 | 1.603 | 34 |
13 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1’12.031 | 1.630 | 36 |
14 | 30 | Jolyon Palmer | Lotus-Mercedes | 1’12.050 | 1.649 | 27 |
15 | 9 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’12.159 | 1.758 | 30 |
16 | 22 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Honda | 1’12.920 | 2.519 | 30 |
17 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren-Honda | 1’13.272 | 2.871 | 10 |
18 | 28 | Will Stevens | Manor-Ferrari | 1’13.937 | 3.536 | 29 |
19 | 98 | Roberto Merhi | Manor-Ferrari | 1’15.459 | 5.058 | 11 |
20 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’15.684 | 5.283 | 4 |
First practice visual gaps
Nico Rosberg – 1’10.401
+0.308 Lewis Hamilton – 1’10.709
+0.627 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’11.028
+1.051 Valtteri Bottas – 1’11.452
+1.232 Felipe Nasr – 1’11.633
+1.241 Daniil Kvyat – 1’11.642
+1.323 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’11.724
+1.424 Max Verstappen – 1’11.825
+1.489 Felipe Massa – 1’11.890
+1.504 Sergio Perez – 1’11.905
+1.547 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’11.948
+1.603 Pastor Maldonado – 1’12.004
+1.630 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’12.031
+1.649 Jolyon Palmer – 1’12.050
+1.758 Marcus Ericsson – 1’12.159
+2.871 Fernando Alonso – 1’13.272
+3.536 Will Stevens – 1’13.937
+5.058 Roberto Merhi – 1’15.459
+5.283 Sebastian Vettel – 1’15.684
mateuss (@mateuss)
19th June 2015, 10:46
Crofty and co again wasting all the session to talk about how F1 is crap rather than talking about what actually is happening, about the developments, about the on-track action, about what actually is interesting.
Malik (@)
19th June 2015, 11:01
Nothing is interesting about this season.
Would you watch the premier league if the season is over?
We have already known the results of season..
The rest is testing for 2016 :)
mateuss (@mateuss)
19th June 2015, 11:12
I disagree with you on so many levels on everything you said.
But would you not watch testing? What are you doing then?
Jorge H. (@kobe08)
19th June 2015, 11:22
So @Malik, why are you watching then?
Malik (@)
19th June 2015, 11:28
@kobe08: I am watching 2016 testing :)
Jorge H. (@kobe08)
19th June 2015, 11:29
:)
vtf
19th June 2015, 11:32
@mateuss and @malik I agree with both of you.
Malik (@)
19th June 2015, 11:38
F1 for me has its own magic, but if the results at least for the midfield cars are more unpredictable it would become more fun to follow
vtf
19th June 2015, 19:31
Drivers are standing 2 by 2 according to their constructors. Only thing that brings a remote change is little mistakes by drivers if their team is anywhere near another one or reliability issues.
Dim sim (@dimsim)
19th June 2015, 11:05
I thought they did a good job. They talked about the Mclaren tech development, that was interesting.
They saw the Ferrari brake down. Then they poked fun at the drivers systematically abusing track limits which is well overdue and extremely warranted.
And nothing else happened.
HK (@me4me)
19th June 2015, 11:19
@mateuss, I fully agree. That was a total waste of time. Stopped watching some minutes before the end cause nothing interesting was happening. The info from the sky team wasn’t very usefull either.. Crofty totally messed up the tokens info etc.
Brian Frank (@brianfrank302)
19th June 2015, 10:48
Austria seems more challenging than Monaco !
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
19th June 2015, 10:49
Surely that was an ‘unsafe release’ for Arrivabene?
Illusive (@illusive)
19th June 2015, 11:12
So whats the penalty :P
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
19th June 2015, 11:30
Time for a penalty.. Arrivabene consigned to the garages for the rest of the weekend.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
19th June 2015, 11:32
That’s a football manager penalty.. F1 penalty would be he is held for 5 seconds next time before he wants to leave the pit wall :P
ColdFly F1 (@)
19th June 2015, 12:49
Next you tell him he can only have 4 PU changes; not good news for a chain smoker ;)
vtf
19th June 2015, 11:33
That actually makes sense!
evered7 (@evered7)
19th June 2015, 11:40
He goes to the corner of his pitbox and turns to face the wall. Stay that way for the rest of the weekend to not know what is happening on the track.
No risk of him running on to the track as well.
uan (@uan)
19th June 2015, 15:22
Hey, when you need a cigarette… ;)
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
19th June 2015, 15:25
Hahaha :-)
Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
19th June 2015, 10:51
The new graphic on the site for this feature definitely gets a thumbs up from me @keithcollantine !
Hamilfan (@hamilfan)
19th June 2015, 11:09
Visual Gap . Nice interesting little feature .
lethalnz
19th June 2015, 11:20
i am not a Vettel fan but i feel for him, poor bugger, Ferrari need to sort that car this time round,
yes as for Crofty and co, they put me to sleep, thanks to the cat which jumped up on my lap i did not miss the first practice.
nice Keith congrates on the new graphics, yep like them.
vtf
19th June 2015, 11:34
+1
eri
19th June 2015, 11:35
I knew it was the car! He’s even slower than Manor!
Dan
19th June 2015, 11:48
Couldn’t believe the amount of time Sky devoted to the Arrivabene incident in the post-practice analysis, complete with slow-motion from every angle etc. It can’t be easy filling airtime after an uneventful session but Sky are scraping the barrel. Don’t they have any producers with a few ideas? Maybe it’s only me who thinks a little of Ted Kravitz goes a very long way.
vtf
19th June 2015, 19:32
Red flag incident of Vettel was not nice, but they are also still talking about that….
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
19th June 2015, 12:13
Kimi is lucky Vettel hits some trouble so he can close the gap to make it seem like he deserves the seat.
abel
19th June 2015, 12:28
Cool chart! Great conversation starter. well done Keith!
SatchelCharge (@satchelcharge)
19th June 2015, 14:29
Have Sauber dropped in the upgraded Ferrari engine for this weekend?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
19th June 2015, 15:25
@satchelcharge Nope