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Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli completed a perfect Friday at the Austrian Grand Prix by going fastest in second practice.
The Mercedes driver beat McLaren pair Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris with a 1m07.014s after also topping FP1 on an extremely hot day at the Red Bull Ring.
Such heat caused a unique challenge as, although the start of FP2 saw drivers frantically hit the 49C track on either medium or hard rubber, the opening stage was defined by reliability woes.
Alex Albon reported “no power” inside his Williams, Arvid Lindblad had trouble with his VCARB 03, whereas Sergio Perez stopped at Turn 6 due to his Cadillac overheating.
That caused a brief virtual safety car and it was only soon after that Antonelli became the first driver to beat his own FP1 benchmark (1m07.796s) with a 1m07.657s on medium tyres.
But his time would only be the pacesetter temporarily, with qualifying sim runs on the soft tyre kicking in after 30 minutes and Piastri soon toppled Antonelli.
Nico Hulkenberg, Audi F1 Team, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Pierre Gasly, Alpine
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Nico Hulkenberg, Audi F1 Team, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Pierre Gasly, Alpine
The McLaren driver set a 1m07.251s, which team-mate Norris and Lewis Hamilton soon respectively got within 0.088s and 0.360s of, before a 1m07.209s put Antonelli top again.
This was where the championship leader started to hit his stride because it was with 20 minutes remaining that he improved again to a 1m07.014s, 0.195s quicker than his previous best lap.
That would subsequently go unbeaten with teams returning to the harder compounds for the final stages, leaving McLaren to complete the top three and bounce back from its reliability woes in FP1.
Best of the rest was fourth-placed Max Verstappen, who was 0.550s off the pace after setting a 1m07.564s late in the soft tyre window ahead of Hamilton (1m07.611s) in fifth.
It was an underwhelming session for Antonelli’s team-mate George Russell, who only mustered sixth on a 1m07.637s with each lap looking a challenge for the Mercedes title hopeful.
That time put the Briton 0.121s faster than seventh-placed Isack Hadjar who, like Red Bull team-mate Verstappen, consistently struggled with a drop of engine RPM at Turn 3.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
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Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc (+0.841s), Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson (+1.221s) and Audi sophomore Gabriel Bortoleto (+1.286s) respectively completed the top 10.
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