Antonelli leads Mercedes 1-2 as rivals hit trouble

Kimi Antonelli put Mercedes on top in first practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, beating team-mate George Russell by 0.040s in a heat-hit session at the Red Bull Ring that left Red Bull and McLaren short of the running they needed.

Antonelli’s best lap of 1m07.796s came from 29 laps, with Russell just behind on 1m07.836s after 30 laps as Mercedes locked out the top two. Oscar Piastri kept McLaren close in third on 1m07.913s, while Max Verstappen recovered to fourth with a 1m08.077s despite losing much of the opening part of the session.

That made Mercedes the early reference on a day when several of its main rivals could not properly execute their programs. Verstappen’s heavily revised Red Bull twice went into anti-stall in the pit lane during the first 20 minutes, forcing mechanics to push the car back before he could finally join the session. The lost time mattered even more because Red Bull had arrived needing clean laps to understand its latest changes.

Once Verstappen did get out, he still did enough to climb to fourth, but his radio messages underlined Red Bull’s lack of confidence in the car. Verstappen said he had “very little feeling” and later reported that “the whole car is shaking under braking.” Team-mate Isack Hadjar also lost significant running after an early problem and ended the session 12th with a 1m09.481s, adding to a messy start for the home team.

McLaren’s morning was not much cleaner. Lando Norris was held in the garage for roughly the first 45 minutes by a hydraulic leak and managed only nine laps, finishing seventh on a 1m08.873s lap without a representative soft-tyre run. Piastri still produced third place, but he also spent the session complaining about his brakes, limiting how much confidence McLaren could take from the result.

The session was run in punishing conditions, with track temperatures reported around 49 to 50C under FIA heat-hazard measures, and it ended early when Sergio Perez stopped his Cadillac near Turn 3 in the final minute after reporting power loss. The red flag denied teams the usual end-of-session practice starts, leaving Red Bull and McLaren with even less useful data after a disrupted start to the weekend.