A ‘misleading’ picture at the top 

Formula🍎 1 championship leader Max Verstappen topped the timesheets on Friday at the Styrian G🃏rand Prix, but that doesn’t necessarily tell the full story heading into qualifying. 

Verstappen ended the day with a seemingly comfortable 0.336s buffer over the rest of the field aft𝔍er title rival Lewis Hamilton saw his best time deleted due to a track limits breach. 

Hamilton had set ღthe fastest lap of the session by 0.077s🐟 from Verstappen during the qualifying simulations on the soft tyres, suggesting there is plenty of one-lap potential in the Mercedes. 

But running beyond the extremities of the track at Turn 10 meant Hamilton lost his time, putting Verstappe𓆉n🌞 back at the top of the leaderboard. 

“Lewis w𒀰as faster but his lap time got deleted so looks a bit different from what I think is shown at the moment,🦄” said Verstappen. 

“If that’s po♏ssible already in FP2 I’m sure towards qualifying, well we have to see and wait what the weather will do, but overall yeah I think it will be again very tight.”

Both their teammates ended up down the order, with Sergio Perez𝓡 understood to be running a lower engine mode as he finished꧅ ninth, while Valtteri Bottas was only 12th after a bizarre pitlane spin saw him hit with a costly three-place grid drop for Sunday.

It is unclear how much more pace there is to come from both the Mercedes and Red Bull, but we look poised for anoth♉er thrilling Saturday and a titanic scrap for pole position. 

The field is incredibly close 

T🥂he short nature of the Spielberg circuit often leads to the field converging, and that was 🔯certainly the case on Friday in Austria. 

Less than nine-tenths of a second covered the top-14 drivers in FP2, with the top 10꧂ featuring six different teams. 

The midfield fight in 2021 has ൲been a hotly contested affair so far and that looks set to continue this weekend. 

Drivers will need to extract the absolute maximum out of their cars in qualifying to get the most out of their weekeꦦnd, with fine margins likely to determine who makes it into Q3, as well as the battle for pole. 

We saw a glimpse of just how costly mistakes can be on Friday as a number of drivers spun when pushing the boundaries of the circuit, while there were track limits breaches aplen♑ty across the combined two hours’ of running. 

McLaren, Alpine impress as Ferrari struggle 

🍬McLaren and Alpine caught the eye in FP2 as Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon equally impressed✅ on their way to second and third respectively. 

Ricciardo jokingly credited a diet of three schnitzels as he lifted his McLaren up to P2 in the timing sheets, endiಌng an encouraging day for himself and the Woking squad just three-tenths off the pace. 

Both McLaren drivers felt their low fuel pace was 𓄧good, leaving themꦉ optimistic about their qualifying prospects. 

Alpine also looked competitive on the qualifying simulation runs, with Ocon outpacing Hamilton and teammate Fernando ♔Alonso, who capped off a strong day by rounding out the top five, within half a second of Verstappen’s benchmark. 

It was a trickier day for Ferrari, with both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finishing outside of the top-10 in the afternoon after only Leclerc had featured in🌼 the top half of the timesheets in FP1. 

Leclerc finished 11th, while Sainz was fortunate not to beach his car in the gravel after a spin at ♕Turn 5 early in the 𝔍session. 

Both drivers struggled for pace on the low-fuel runs, leaving Ferrari with plenty of work to do to get in a🍨 better plac♌e for qualifying day. 

Setback for Gasly after positive start 

Pi♏erre Gasly starred on Friday morning as he set the second-fastest time behind Verstappen in FP1, but his promising start to the weekend was quickly dampened wh𝓡en he was ruled out of FP2. 

Honda spotted irreg🍌ularities on the data of Gasly’s power unit following l👍engthy checks post-FP1, forcing him to watch the afternoon session from the pitwall.. 

It puts the Frenchman on the backfoot heading into the rest of the weekend❀ given he lost a full hour of valuable track time. However, Gasly remains confident about AlphaTauri’s potential in Austria. 

“It’s not ideal, it’s a big shame but hopefully it doesn’t impact us too much f𝓡or the rest of the we🌳ekend,” he said. 

“This morning was great, so I was really confident and there were a couple of things I wanted to try this afternoon. There are some question-marks but hopefully we can go into qꦅualifying confident.” 

Eyes on the skies 

Rain was expected to hit the Red Bull Ring on Fr🦩iday with forecasts predicting an 80% percent chance of rain, though F1 ultimately evaded the precipitation aside from some light drops at the start of FP2. 

A deluge hit the track late🅘r in time for the Porsche Supercup running and with t𓆏hunderstorms set to be in the area overnight, a likelihood of rain affecting proceedings on Saturday remains. 

With scattered showers forecast for Saturday and the prospect of thunderstorms on Sunday, all eye🅰s will be firmly fixed on the skies as the weather looks set to play its part thi♏s weekend.