This is an important training session, the only one of the whole Austrian Grand Prix, and here the teams had to focus all possible work on one goal: find the right settings before the action begins. And it is that despite this Free 1, the teams will not be able to do more tests in an Austrian F1 GP held in a weekend sprint format. That means, This afternoon (5:00 pm/DAZN F1) the classification is debated, where pole position and grid position are at stake for Sunday’s race. And tomorrow, there will be no free practice, as the short classification will be held, which will dictate the starting grid for the subsequent short sprint race.
Beyond these Free 1s, teams will not be able to change settings. Therefore, it is very important to find all the answers to arrive as well as possible for Sunday’s race. Therefore, in this session the hours had a relative importance. The drivers worked against the clock until, with 10 minutes to go, many of them dared to spend a new set of soft tires to perform a qualifying simulation.
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This is what Carlos Sainz and his partner Charles Leclerc did. The Madrid rider restarted ahead of the Monegasque with 1’05″983. Leclerc had to push until his sixth lap of rubber to gain 29 thousandths of a Sainz who was still comfortable behind the wheel of his Ferrari. In fact, it looked like Carlos could lead the first session, but then, before the rain even appeared, the Verstappen storm happened. Max, riding the medium rubber, which should be about 4 tenths slower than the soft used by Sainz, beat Carlos’ time on his last lap by 0″241. In this way, led by Max the only free practice session ahead of de Sainz (2nd at 0″241), Leclerc (3rd at 0″270, Hamilton (4th at 0″509), with a ‘Checo ‘ Pérez who also set his time in the midfielder to occupy the 5th position at 0″520 from the Dutch.
Alonso, 8th not putting on soft rubber
Stroll was the first Aston Martin in 6th place at 0″598, ahead of Magnussen and Fernando Alonso who was 8th at 0″914, but there was a lot of room for improvement, as the Asturian allocated the soft tyres.
We will have to wait for today’s qualifying (5:00 pm/DAZN F1) to find out the true one-turn performance of all the cars on a track where Verstappen is the great favorite and where it is expected ‘Czech’ Perez improve compared to previous classifications (he had three ‘qually’ in Q3). From there, expect some very powerful Ferraris at a turn, with Sainz and Leclerc going all out to find a place on the front line or with the aim of getting as close as possible to VerstappenOf course, with doubts as to whether on Sunday they will have a good race rhythm as in Canada or if in Austria they will sink again in the Sunday appointment accusing them of further destruction. For his part, Fernando Alonso will have to fight with Ferrari from now until one turn, but also against Mercedes.
It will be necessary to see if the green car, with the improvements introduced in Canada, where the car showed a higher top speed in the straight, can fight against Ferrari and Mercedes in a corner to avoid returning to the race in search of the 7th podium in 9 appointments for the man from Oviedo.
Right now, for free Aston Martin is committed to doing the important and necessary task of comparing the settings between its two cars to maximize the performance of a package of updates that in Canada gave very good results and believe that, by optimizing the settings, it can yield better on the Spielberg track.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
