2025 Austrian Grand Prix - Friday

Solid start to the weekend in Spielberg

·        The team is back in the hills of Styria, Austria for the 11^th race of the 2025 calendar.

·        Friday’s practice sessions enabled the team to work through a busy programme across all three tyre compounds, gaining an understanding of the overall balance ahead of the weekend.

·        FP1 saw the team focus on learning about the C3 Hard and C5 Soft tyre compounds behaviour on the track; there was single lap work on both compounds before ending the programme with long runs.

·        The C4 Medium and C5 Soft compounds were then used in FP2 with both single laps and long run work once again completed.

·        George topped the times in FP1 and, despite setting times earlier than our competitors, the single lap continued to look competitive in FP2.

·        This weekend, the team is running a tribute on the W16 in memory of our colleague Mark Hudson, who sadly passed away last week. Mark was a much-loved member of the Composite Build team and had been with the team for over 12 years.

·        The tribute includes a green “pre-fit OK” sticker, part of Mark’s duties as the last person to fit the components to each car when leaving the factory. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time. 

George Russell

We struggled a bit today, but the afternoon session was aligned with our pre-weekend expectations. We had strong single lap pace in FP1 which was a slight surprise for us. The car balance felt good but jumping into FP2, we took a little bit of a step back. We will look into that overnight and aim to return towards the sweet spot we found within the first hour of practice.

We’ll be doing our best tomorrow but seeing the McLarens pace, we might struggle to fight for pole position. Hopefully we can be in the mix for the top five, but we are also aware of how much race pace dictates your result here. The tarmac is abrasive here and managing that has not been a strength of ours recently. We will work hard to optimise the car though and see what we can do over the rest of the weekend.

Kimi Antonelli
It was a pretty tricky day overall but still a positive one with lots of learnings. I was feeling good at the start of both FP1 and FP2 but the track being this short, it’s always a challenge to get a good single lap. I didn’t feel that I optimised any of my laps on the softest compound, making a few mistakes here or there. I will focus on improving that in FP3, so I am ready heading into Qualifying.

My long runs were more promising, though. Our pace looked decent throughout and the overall balance of the car felt good. We know that a circuit with tarmac that is as abrasive as it is here usually makes our life difficult. Hopefully the recent steps we have taken with the W16 will have helped in this area, but we will only know come the Grand Prix on Sunday. For now, we know which areas we need to work on overnight and hopefully can take another step forward with the car as we head into the weekend.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We had a solid start to the weekend in FP1. The overall car balance was good, and we looked strong on the single lap. We had focused more on the long run through and were able to get decent data; all seemed in a reasonable place in terms of pace and degradation. 

We looked less competitive in the second session on the single lap, however. The wind direction changed somewhat and that didn't suit us. We also made some changes that may have hurt the balance, but we can look at those on the simulator overnight. The long run still looked decent thankfully and as we had got started on that programme earlier than others, we were able to complete more laps. McLaren still look like the ones to beat, which is not a surprise at a track like this, but we're reasonably content with today as a starting point for our weekend.

Noah Strømsted, Mercedes Junior – FIA F3  

We started today strongly with good pace in Free Practice. It is always tricky to ensure you can carry that into Qualifying, but we were able to do that. I did struggle to put a lap together at the start of the session, which put a little bit more pressure on our second run. Thankfully, I managed to hook up a good lap and take P3 on the grid. I am really happy with my performance today and it gives us a good opportunity to score some solid points over the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow, we have the Sprint race, and I will be doing my best to make up positions and bag a good result.