Verstappen leads Leclerc and Russell as Bottas gets a grid penalty! FP1 highlights from the RedBull ring

An enormous crowd of orange donned spectators welcomed the start of the home race for RedBull, here at the RedBull Ring. Many drivers seemed to struggle due to heavy gusts of winds especially affecting their runs on the fast corners. However, few minutes into the session, Norris had to stop the car due to smoke from under his seat which caused the session to be red flagged. The session resumed shortly after but was yet again red flagged due to debris appearing on track from the curb insulation. It was also reported that Valtteri Bottas had taken up multiple new engine components, namely MGU-H, MGU-K, Turbocharger and control electronics, which would penalize him for a pit-lane start for sunday.

Max Verstappen topped the charts this afternoon, closely followed by Leclerc and Hamilton. Owing to the red flags drivers were not able to get a lot of laps in and hence could not collect a lot of data so we will be able to witness an interesting Qualifying session for tomorrow’s sprint race. The complete timing sheet is given below: