Lewis Hamilton emerged fastest in Friday Practice for 2021 Austrian Grand Prix ahead of Mercedes’ teammate, Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
With Pirelli bringing a prototype test tyre to Friday Practice at the Red Bull, all ten teams endured two packed sessions of running whilst Alpine handed Guanyu Zhou his FP1 debut in place of Fernando Alonso with the Chinese driver finishing 14th quickest.
Hamilton meanwhile emerged fastest overall on Friday ahead of Bottas and Verstappen as we bring a full round-up of action across both practice sessions.
FP1
With Pirelli conducting a prototype rear tyre test in FP1, the entire field quickly hit the track to maximise their running as Verstappen emerged quickest in the opening ten minutes with 1m 06.007, whilst Yuki Tsunoda had a brief wide moment on exit of Turn Four through the gravel trap after suffering a snap of oversteer.
Lance Stroll however experienced two offs in the session as he spun at Turn Six in the 11th minute on the prototype tyre after dipping his right tyres on the gravel, before losing the rear end of his Aston Martin 20 minutes later at Turn 10 on cold tyres as he geared up for a flying lap.
Elsewhere, Verstappen comfortably dominated the session despite often being pushed by AlphaTauri duo of Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, yet it was Verstappen who finished quickest with 1m 05.143 ahead of the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Valtteri Bottas initially focused on high-fuel race simulations but recovered to finish fourth ahead of Tsunoda and Kimi Raikkonen, whilst Lewis Hamilton finished seventh despite being on the same programme as Bottas with Sergio Perez, Gasly and Lando Norris rounding out the top ten.
Fernando Alonso, Antonio Giovinazzi and George Russell sat out the session as Alpine, Alfa Romeo and Williams ran test drivers, in which Guanyu Zhou on debut for Alpine was quickest out of the three test drivers participating in FP1 after finishing 14th quickest with Alfa’s Callum Ilott finishing 16th quickest.
Roy Nissany meanwhile was 18th quickest for Williams and the only test driver to deliver a quicker lap time than his FP1 teammate, having finished the session 0.295 seconds quicker than Nicholas Latifi whereas Zhou was 0.434s slower than Ocon and Ilott was 0.978s slower than Raikkonen.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1m 05.143 |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | + 0.266 |
| 3 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | + 0.288 |
| 4 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | + 0.302 |
| 5 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | + 0.331 |
| 6 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo | + 0.443 |
| 7 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | + 0.566 |
| 8 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | + 0.583 |
| 9 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | + 0.583 |
| 10 | Lando Norris | McLaren | + 0.737 |
| 11 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | + 0.837 |
| 12 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | + 1.038 |
| 13 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 1.060 |
| 14 | Guanyu Zhou | Alpine | + 1.271 |
| 15 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | + 1.301 |
| 16 | Callum Ilott | Alfa Romeo | + 1.421 |
| 17 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | + 1.440 |
| 18 | Roy Nissany | Williams | + 1.540 |
| 19 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | + 1.835 |
| 20 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas | + 2.173 |
FP2
Another frantic start to Practice ensured in the afternoon as teams sought to complete prototype tyre running ahead of qualifying simulations, with Verstappen setting the pace on 1m 05.773 in the opening minutes before Bottas displaced him with 1m 05.602 in the 15th minute.
Verstappen responded in the 20th minute following a switch to medium tyres with 1m 05.239 ahead of soft tyre qualifying simulations, which was topped by Hamilton on 1m 04.523 ahead of Bottas and Verstappen as Stroll and Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top five for Aston Martin.
Light rain however soon began to sweep in during race simulations as Hamilton ran wide at Turn Four in slippery track conditions and Norris spun at Turn One after lifting the throttle too early on exit of the corner.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m 04.523 |
| 2 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | + 0.189 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | + 0.217 |
| 4 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 0.616 |
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | + 0.745 |
| 6 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | + 0.833 |
| 7 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | + 0.856 |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | + 0.870 |
| 9 | Lando Norris | McLaren | + 0.943 |
| 10 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | + 0.988 |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | + 0.993 |
| 12 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | + 1.004 |
| 13 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | + 1.097 |
| 14 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo | + 1.101 |
| 15 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | + 1.175 |
| 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | + 1.185 |
| 17 | George Russell | Williams | + 1.296 |
| 18 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | + 1.388 |
| 19 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | + 1.491 |
| 20 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas | + 1.650 |
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