#F1 #StyrianGP FP2 Report: @Max33Verstappen quickest ahead of @ValtteriBottas.

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen posted the fastest time of the afternoon in FP2 at the Styrian Grand Prix whilst former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo suffered an earlier crash.

 

 

In this session, which could potentially end up setting the grid should qualifying be cancelled due to torrential rain and thunderstorms forecast for Saturday, last year’s Austrian Grand Prix winner Verstappen pipped Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas for P1 in the time-sheets.

 

The Dutchman set the benchmark of a 1:03.660 to take top spot in his Honda-powered RB16, making the most of the stunning conditions at the Red Bull Ring to do extended qualifying simulation runs.

 

The 90 minute session was red-flagged after the 13 minute mark due to a nasty shunt by Renault’s Ricciardo at the penultimate corner.

 

The Australian lost the rear of his R.S.20 racer as the turned into the fast right hand Rindt corner, causing him to spin backwards into the barrier.

 

The heavy crash left the car with a damaged left-side and rear wing, while Ricciardo looked to be limping slightly as he walked away unscathed from the incident, in which he was later medically cleared.

 

There was a 15-minute wait under the red flag conditions as barriers were repaired and Ricciardo’s R.S.20 was returned to his team garage, with the Anglo-French outfit faced with a long night to repair the car.

 

As FP2 could set Sunday’s grid for the Styrian Grand Prix, teams opted to spend half of the session running qualifying simulation programs.

 

BWT Racing Point F1 Team pairing Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll, set the initial pace on their C4 red-mark soft compounds, with both sitting first and second respectively at the 45th minute mark in the session. The latter completed three separate runs on fresher tyres, whilst Perez was able to get within one-hundredth of a second in his Q3 time from last Saturday’s qualifying session.

 

Current championship leader Bottas moved ahead of Perez at the top of the time-sheets by nearly two-tenths of a second, only to be bumped off P1 by Red Bull’s Verstappen.

 

Verstappen had a few lap times deleted for running wide upon the exit of the final corner, but the Dutchman managed to put together a good lap on a set of soft rubber to take top spot by 0.043 seconds.

 

Bottas settled for second, but his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton struggled to sixth place as the reigning World Driver’s Champion struggled during his qualifying simulation runs.

 

The Brackley-based squad reported that the Briton was unhappy with his F1 E11 EQ Power+ racer, with the team quickly making a setup change and alignment adjustment before further investigation on his struggles post-FP2.

 

Perez and Stroll remained in third and fourth respectively, ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz who rounded out the top five and the aforementioned Hamilton in sixth.

 

The second Red Bull of Alexander Albon was seventh, surviving two spins in the hour and a half session, while the other McLaren of Lando Norris ended the day eighth as the latter post-practice spoke of back pains he was suffering.

 

Ferrari encountered another difficult session as Charles Leclerc ended the day ninth, but team-mate Sebastian Vettel took a lowly 16th, having feared his SF1000 racer suffered damage to the right-hand side after running over the kerbs along with several lap-times being deleted due to exceeding track limits.

 

Renault’s Esteban Ocon completed the top ten, in-front of AlphaTauri pairing Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat, whose attempts at giving each other slipstreams ended abruptly after Gasly was furious over the radio.

 

Alfa Romeo Racing duo Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi finished 13th and 14th respectively, with Williams’ George Russell taking 15th, who returned to pilot his FW43 after giving the honours to reserve Jack Aitken in the morning.

 

The other Williams FW43 of Nicholas Latifi, who suffered a gearbox issue in the first session, ended FP2 in 17th, behind the aforementioned Vettel.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean wound up 18th and 19th respectively and ahead of Renault’s Ricciardo who was unable to post a time due to his heavy crash.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Grosser Preis Der Steiermark (Styrian Grand Prix) 2020 Free Practice 2 Classification at the following link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1046/austria/practice-2.html

 

Missed Free Practice 2? Watch the highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uq1Y2MvBJY

 

Styrian GP Day One – Selected Driver Quotes

 

Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“It felt relatively normal out there today, but the pace was quite far off, so we have a lot of work to do this evening to try and figure out why. I was feeling good in FP1 and the start of FP2 felt pretty good too, but then it started to drop off. Others out there looked quick and Valtteri has good pace. It seems like the field is bunching up a bit more, but it’s always tough to read into what happened in practice. We’ve got some work to do, to look into the data and find out what’s going on. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be in a better position. It looks set to be wet tomorrow, but it’s fun to be out there in those conditions so hopefully we can still drive in the rain.” Credit to Mercedes for the quote: https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/news/2020/2020-austrian-grand-prix/2020-styrian-grand-prix-friday-mercedes-bottas-hamilton/

 

Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“It was a very useful day of practice. We had quite a few things to try after last weekend. FP1 was mainly looking into whether we had fixed the reliability concerns from last Sunday. The team is still looking into that, but I think we have made some progress. We made some good set-up tweaks and I tried to use the learnings from last weekend, in terms of one-lap pace and driving style over a race distance. We are all getting to know this track pretty well now, but still it’s always good fun to be on track here. I still feel really good in the car, which is good news, but in the end the next two days are the ones that count.” Credit to Mercedes for the quote: https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/news/2020/2020-austrian-grand-prix/2020-styrian-grand-prix-friday-mercedes-bottas-hamilton/

 

Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16:

“The car already feels better than last week, the balance is a lot nicer to drive and we have made a good step. It is only Friday practice and of course it is too early to say how we are looking against Mercedes, but from our side I think we are quite happy. We have tried a few different directions to understand the car a bit more and I think we are heading the right way which I’m pleased about.”

 

“We have to see what will happen tomorrow with the weather but otherwise we will find out where we really are on Sunday. Normally our race pace is more competitive but already over one lap we can’t complain and actually the 11 laps I did in last week’s race didn’t look too bad, so it can only get better. Even if tomorrow the weather is too bad for qualifying I expect we will still have Sunday morning to do it, so I don’t expect to be on pole position with this lap.” Credit to Red Bull Racing for the quote: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/redbullracing/races/steiermark-grand-prix-2020/free-practice-steiermark-gp

 

Alexander Albon, #23, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16:

“We’ve been getting a bit creative and trying some different things compared to last week’s running here, some of the changes worked and some didn’t, so it’s a bit of a mixed day. The weather for tomorrow is obviously a bit of an unknown so let’s see what happens and if we’re even driving, as every time it’s rained here it’s been a monsoon. We’ll still treat tonight like any other Friday though and look over the data to see what we can learn ahead of tomorrow.”

 

“Late in the session I pushed a bit too much on the exit of the corner, nothing serious, and lost the rear. Max obviously had a good session and is comfortable with the car so hopefully we can learn a little bit from his side of the garage and take a step forward.” Credit to Red Bull Racing for the quote: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/redbullracing/races/steiermark-grand-prix-2020/free-practice-steiermark-gp

 

 

Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari, SF1000:

“Today the car felt a lot better than last week. Right from the start, it was a different car and I was just able to get on with it. Now I hope it stays like this. If you look at the time sheet, I got my best lap deleted so obviously it wasn’t a great day for lap times, but there will be rain tomorrow, so we are just preparing in case quali is on Sunday.”

 

For us, the main thing was testing the upgrades that we brought. We put them on the car step by step and they seemed to work well. We still need to have a look and find the best window where the car is happiest. We tried quite a few things on the brakes and I still need to find the rhythm. Apart from that, we did our usual Friday homework. Let’s see how wet it’s going to be tomorrow, it might mix things up.” Credit to Ferrari for the quote: https://www.ferrari.com/en-AU/formula1/articles/f1-styrian-gp-2020-practice-report

 

Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, SF1000:

We had a difficult day, even though towards the end, we made some progress on high fuel load runs. Let’s see whether tomorrow or on Sunday, depending on the weather, we can also make progress in low fuel conditions.
There’s potential in the updates we’ve brought here. We need to keep working on them to tune them and define all they can deliver. I am happy about the prospect of rain, so let’s see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully, if it rains, it won’t be too hard, so we’ll still be able to take on the track and see where we can be on the starting grid.” Credit to Ferrari for the quote: https://www.ferrari.com/en-AU/formula1/articles/f1-styrian-gp-2020-practice-report

 

Daniel Ricciardo, #3, Renault F1 Team, R.S.20:

“Unfortunately, it was a very short second session for us. That first push lap was going quite well up until Turn 9. It was a mistake, it all happened very quickly so I’m not sure what went wrong. I turned in and just lost the car straight away. I know these things happen with cars and in Formula 1, so it’s not out of the ordinary. I’m OK, however, I feel bad for the guys. We’ll just move on. The car felt fine this morning, especially towards the end. The second session would have been interesting, so we’ll just have to find out our pace tomorrow or Sunday.” Credit to Renault Sport for the quote: https://www.renaultsport.com/2020-formula-1-pirelli-styrian-grand-prix-friday.html?r=331

 

Lando Norris, #4, McLaren Racing-Renault, MCL35:

 

“I had a difficult day with a few setbacks. I didn’t complete as many laps as we would’ve liked to because of a couple of problems, but the car still feels good and I think we have decent pace. I think a few other teams have stepped it up a little bit more and extracted more than we could since last weekend, but we’re still in a good place heading into tomorrow and Sunday. The car feels nice and that gives me good confidence, but the conditions are looking like they’ll change for Saturday and Sunday, so we’ve got to be ready for that.” Credit to McLaren for the quote: https://www.mclaren.com/racing/2020/styrian-grand-prix/2020-styrian-grand-prix-free-practice/

 

Carlos Sainz, #55, McLaren Racing-Renault, MCL35:

“Repeating the same track for the second consecutive weekend helped us to compare a few set-ups. I tried a few experimental changes to get on top of the balance issues I had last weekend. Some of them were positive, others not so much, so we still need to keep analysing going into the weekend. It’s a bit of a special Friday because of the risk of qualifying being cancelled tomorrow. Many drivers went out on new tyres and tried to put a good lap-time in just in case. We’ll see what the weather brings, but it could get interesting!” Credit to McLaren for the quote: https://www.mclaren.com/racing/2020/styrian-grand-prix/2020-styrian-grand-prix-free-practice/

 

Sergio Perez, #11, BWT Racing Point F1 Team, RP20:

“It’s been a promising day. We’ve been chipping away and learning about our car, and that’s been positive so far – exploring where we can make improvements and find performance. It’s very close among the top teams, but we’ve shown that both cars are in the mix for points, just like we were last weekend. Obviously, there’s signs of wet weather tomorrow so let’s wait and see what happens in Qualifying.” Credit to Racing Point for the quote: https://www.racingpointf1.com/news/report-top-five-pace-in-austria-practice-bwt-racing-point-f1-team

 

Styrian GP – Short-Sharp F1 Paddock News of the Week

 

 

• Formula 1 announced Mugello Circuit will host a Formula 1 Grand Prix for the very first time in September as the sport broke the news yesterday along with the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi, increasing the calendar to ten races. The Tuscan Grand Prix at Mugello will be celebrating Ferrari’s 1000th race. Mugello’s round will be from September 11-13, the week after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, while the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi is to be held from September 25-27. You can checkout the full calendar at the link: Formula 1 2020 Championship Calendar. Formula 1 is expected to increase the calendar to a maximum of 15-18 races.

 

 

• On Wednesday it was announced that Renault DP World F1 Team brought back two-time Formula 1 World Driver’s Champion Fernando Alonso on a two-year deal to partner alongside Esteban Ocon for the 2021 and 22 seasons. Renault and Alonso won back-to-back championships together in 2005 and 2006. The Spaniard’s record in Formula 1 are as follows: 314 Grand Prix starts, 32 wins and 97 podiums. Alonso said: “Renault is my family, my fondest memories in Formula One with my two World Championship titles, but I’m now looking ahead. It’s a great source of pride and with an immense emotion I’m returning to the team that gave me my chance at the start of my career and which now gives me the opportunity to return to the highest level. I have principles and ambitions in line with the team’s project. Their progress this winter gives credibility to the objectives for the 2022 season and I will share all my racing experience with everyone from the engineers to the mechanics and my team-mates. The team wants and has the means to get back on the podium, as do I.” Credit to Renault for the quote.

 

 

• After the highs of scoring his first Formula 1 podium in last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, chances of another podium is doubtful for McLaren’s Lando Norris as he was hit with a three-grid placed penalty for this weekend’s Styrian Grand Prix after overtaking under waved yellow flags during Free Practice 1. The stewards found the Briton had overtaken Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and BWT Racing Point’s Sergio Perez under the yellow flags, which were brought out when Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi was forced to park his FW43 at turn five due to a gearbox problem.

 

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You can catch up on the Formula 1 Grosser Preis Der Steiermark (Styrian Grand Prix) 2020 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the following link: #StyrianGP FP1 Report: @RacingPoint’s @SChecoPerez tops the time-sheets. #F1

Read this weekend’s Formula 1 Grosser Preis Der Steiermark (Styrian Grand Prix) 2020 preview at the link: #F1 @Rolex Grosser Preis Der Steiermark 2020 Preview. #StyrianGP.