This session has finished. No further updates will be posted.
That concludes our live coverage of first practice. Here’s the session report.
FP1 has finished and George Russell is fastest. Report to follow.
Hamilton has got a representative time in and is ninth, half a second off Russell. That leaves the top 18 covered by eight tenths of a second with the Haas pair a touch further behind.
Almost every driver has done a lap on softs now and all bar the bottom three are covered by just eight tenths of a second. The trio are the Haas drivers plus Hamilton, who’s been stuck in the pits with a gearbox problem on his Ferrari.
A strong lap from Dunne in the McLaren put him up to fourth place, only six-hundredths of a second off Piastri.
Esteban Ocon locks up at turn one and briefly follows the old track route before rejoining.
Verstappen did a slow build lap and finally puts a time up, he’s six hundredths off Russell on softs.
Oscar Piastri, with plenty of flow-vis on the right-hand side of the McLaren, moves up to second, a tenth of a second off Russell and only a few hundredths ahead of Gasly.
Verstappen nursing his soft tyres gently on an out-lap.
Fernando Alonso has a quick spin at the exit of the final corner as he prepared to begin a lap but gets going again. “That was the worst out lap we can do,” he remarks.
Most cars are in the pits. Andrea Kimi Antonelli goes third on softs, three tenths of a second off Russell.
Potentially problems for both Ferraris as the team has taken the floor off Leclerc’s car (which is being driven in this session by Beganovic). The team introduced a new floor this weekend.
Sure enough Russell bangs in a 1’05.776 to go fastest.
Ferrari tell Hamilton “we have an issue with the gearbox.” He’s back in the pits.
That might not last long however as Russell, having fallen to second, is now out on a set of softs.
Carlos Sainz Jnr jumps up from fifth to lead the times with a 1’06.017 in the Williams on mediums.
Gasly on the same rubber as Verstappen and only nine-thousandths off him at the moment.
Isack Hadjar is immediately behind his team mate, just eight-thousandths of a second off.
Liam Lawson moves up to seventh in the Racing Bulls despite having to pass Hamilton in between the final two corners. He’s on mediums.
Tsunoda complains “the brake is really poor” after going off at turn three.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli is up to second on hards, Max Verstappen third on mediums.
Yuki Tsunoda goes 10th on a set of hards. He will be very keen to return to Q3 this weekend having narrowly missed it in Canada.
Lance Stroll was quickest with a 1’06.853 on a set of mediums, but George Russell in the Mercedes beats that with a 1’06.537.
Max Verstappen does not have his usual race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase this weekend. Simon Rennie, formerly Daniel Ricciardo’s race engineer when he drove for the team until 2018, is substituting.
Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon have taken new power units this weekend.
Practice has begun at the Red Bull Ring. Lewis Hamilton leads the cars out with a substantial aero rig on the rear of his Ferrari. Dunne follows him in the McLaren.
This will be a revealing day for Ferrari especially as they have a major floor upgrade for their SF-25 which the team hopes is going to bring it back into contention at the sharp end. With Mercedes’ victory last time out, Ferrari is the only team which won a race last year but is yet to win in 2025.
Meanwhile Dino Beganovic will take over Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari again. Both newcomers will be especially eager to avoid damaging the regular driver’s cars, though if Beganovic does he can at least point out Leclerc did so in the opening practice session at Montreal two weeks ago…
For the first time since 2021, the Austrian Grand Prix is not a sprint event, so this opening practice session isn’t also the last. Two teams are therefore using the opportunity to complete another of their mandatory outings for junior drivers. Formula 2 points leader Alex Dunne, who was quickest in their practice session earlier today, will make his first appearance in F1, driving Lando Norris’s McLaren.
The first practice session for the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix is coming up next.
2025 Austrian Grand Prix
- “Straightforward” start for Verstappen as Rennie steps in for absent race engineer Lambiase
- Hamilton given formal warning after impeding a rival for third time this year
- Norris leads McLaren one-two ahead of Verstappen in second practice
- As it happened: 2025 Austrian Grand Prix second practice
- Russell leads Verstappen as Dunne impresses on practice debut for McLaren
