Hamilton leads another Mercedes one-two in Austria

2014 Austrian Grand Prix second practice

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Mercedes remained on top during the second practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix but this time is was Lewis Hamilton who led the way.

Nico Rosberg took three attempts to get within four-tenths of a second of his team mate, as the two W05s were the only cars to lap the Red Bull Ring in under 70 seconds.

However the gap between the silver cars and their rivals widened considerably in the afternoon session. Fernando Alonso was third-quickest for Ferrari, over nine-tenths of a second off Hamilton’s pace.

The Williams pair were close behind, Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa within five-hundredths of a second of the Ferrari. Red Bull enjoyed a better second session at their home track, with Sebastian Vettel in sixth place and Daniel Ricciardo eighth.

A rain shower briefly threatened the final minutes of the session while the drivers were completing their race simulations. But while stronger winds briefly made for challenging conditions the track stayed dry.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’09.54250
26Nico RosbergMercedes1’09.9190.37737
314Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’10.4700.92840
477Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’10.5190.97744
519Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’10.5210.97939
61Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’10.8071.26539
722Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’10.8131.27144
83Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’10.9201.37836
920Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’10.9361.39445
1025Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’10.9721.43039
117Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’10.9741.43245
1226Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’11.2611.71945
1311Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’11.2961.75436
1421Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’11.4911.94942
1513Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’11.7652.22330
1699Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’11.8062.26442
1727Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’11.9352.39339
184Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’12.2292.68743
198Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’12.2622.72046
2017Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’12.2792.73736
2110Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’12.9373.39524
229Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’13.5964.05448

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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35 comments on “Hamilton leads another Mercedes one-two in Austria”

  1. So after months and months of god-awful complaining about how the new engine formula is terrible, etc etc, the Mercedes guys are within 2 seconds of the V10 lap record. That’s one hell of an achievement given how restrictive the tech regulations have become in the last decade.
    Also it’s great to see Marussia slowly become more and more competitive, I can’t shake the thought that they might be battling in the midfield by the end of the season!

    1. And they are going to lower that laptime a lot till tomorrow qualify.
      I expect a 1.08.6-1.08.7 for pole.

      1. I think the pole time will be a 1.07

        1. I expect a 1.06s !

          1. No chance. Even a 1:07 is optimistic (but possible if Hamilton does “the lap”)

    2. 2 seconds is a lot in f1 though. Also are you referring to the backmarker v10 cars or the v10 front runners?

      1. Front runners – the fastest lap in 2003 was a 1:07.908 by MSC in the Ferrari

        1. On Wikipedia it says 1:08.337 …?

          1. The 1:07.908 time was in Friday qualifying, they had two qualifying sessions back then.

            The 1:08.337 time was fastest lap during the race.

      2. Front runners I would imagine. The fastest lap ever recorded on this layout was a 1.08.337 set by Schumacher in 2003.

        1. I think the fastest time ever was a 1:08.082. The pole position lap from Rubens Barrichello in 2002

    3. @ciaran
      You forget how much the cars were improved aerodynamically. I Remember Vettel breaking the track record in Albert Part and Hungaroring despite being down on power compared to the V10 powered cars

    4. I agree that given the restraints of the regulations, the performance from these cars is truly impressive. I am getting fed up though, with a difference of opinion being regularly referred to as ‘god awful complaining’, ‘moaning’ whining’ etc. So, some of us don’t like the 2014 engines. For me, it is not about performance, I would WAY rather have a racing car with much more power then grip, and I think ultimate lap times are almost irrelevant really. The lack of noise though, for many of we ‘purists’, is unforgivable. But it is not ‘moaning’, it is an opinion.

      1. Does me liking the new engine formula make me impure?

        1. Not all if you are just watching on TV.

      2. @paulguitar: Funnily enough, for many of we “purists” racing is more about the speed than the noise. You know, fastest driver wins, not loudest driver. But that’s just my opinion ;-)

        1. Have you been to a race this year though? I think you might find that suddenly you consider the noise very important, now that is has all but gone.

    5. you are talking of a record approx. 10 year ago. it would probably be 5 seconds a lap faster last year if the f1 cars drove recently. you are also missing the point, the new engine formula is terrible for the lack of sound quality, and that engine homologation was so early, locking in mercedes early advantage in the formula, which makes for a dull season of predictable results.

      1. If you say Mercedes’ domination is down to the engine homologation, then how do you explain McLaren, Force India and Williams – all of whom run identical Merc engines – not being able to match their pace?

    6. 2014 cars can generally compete with v10 cars on these kinds of track layouts. long straights with not so much high speed corners. meaning stop start tracks.

    7. 2014 spec cars don’t seem too slow on this track simply because they stopped racing there in 2003. In 2004 they were on average 2.5 secs faster in qualifying, given that this is a short track I’d say that compared to the 1.07.908 in 2003 in 2004 we would see a low 1.06 time.

    8. it’s a short lap so the differences are diminished. also, it’s a power circuit so you would expect the turbos to compare well. however, 1 second gap to alonso is staggering.

      1. Exactly. Actually, this is biggest wonder: short track, but the gap is still ~1 second !

    9. You’re right, but can’t remember if they had SuperSofts back then. Also, the track length is like short… so expect small differences.

  2. Red Bull pretty slow Keith & they obviously weren’t doing long runs all day- any major issue or just that far off the pace in terms of power??

  3. Redbull always tend to run heavy in practice whereas Ferrari do the opposite.

    I expect Ricciardo and Vettel to be within 7 tenths of the Mercedes in quallifying.

  4. I guess we’ll need another problem from Mercedes cars to level the field again. 160 HP down on power in Canada and if the brakes were OK it wouldn’t be enough still.

  5. Massa’s Williams-Mercedes was again the thing to have in a straight line in Practice 2, trapping at 318.3 km/h (197.8 mp/h). Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso was the fastest Renault car at 316 km/h (196.4 mp/h), 4.6 km/h faster than Vettel and 6.1 faster than Ricciardo. Fastest Ferrari was Alonso at 315.3 km/h (195.9 mp/h).

    Maldanardo’s Lotus-Renault was again the slowest at 306.8 km/h (190.6 mp/h).

  6. The 2013 Mercedes must be comparable to the 1988 McLaren (MP-4 I think) in terms of sheer domination!!
    The only one McLaren dropped in 88 was when Senna was T-boned by a back marker a few laps out at Monza!
    Canada an issue for them (great for us Dan Fans) but the Mercs are just awesome!! Sweet for us the drivers are allowed to race and its gonna be a good finish!! Go Nico!!

  7. A comparison of the fastest times between 2014 and the last Friday practice at an Austrian GP at the then A1 Ring:
    2003 – David Coulthard, McLaren MP4-17D Mercedes (3.0L V10) – 1:08.836
    2014 – Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid (1.6L V6 turbo) – 1:09.542

    For those racing in 2014 who were there in 2003:
    Fernando Alonso
    2003 – Renault R23 – 1:09.071
    2014 – Ferrari F14 T – 1:10.470
    Jenson Button
    2003 – BAR 005 Honda – 1:09.374
    2014 – McLaren MP4-29 Mercedes – 1’10.813
    Kimi Räikkönen
    2003 – McLaren MP4-17D Mercedes – 1:10.019
    2014 – Ferrari F14 T – 1’10.974

    Pole in 2003 was set by Michael Schumacher in his Ferrari F2002 with a time of 1:09.150. Back in 2003 Friday also included a qualifying session in which Schumacher recorded a 1:07.908 (I must be forgetting something as I can’t see why Michael’s Saturday time was credited as pole when it was slower than his Friday time).

    1. He set the pole time carrying the fuel for the first stint of the race.
      And on Austria the car was already the F2003GA. F2002 raced until San Marino.

    2. Because the single lap friday qualifying was only to determin the order you went out for the saturday single lap shootout (fastest on friday went out last on saturday)

    3. Thanks guys. I forgot about all of that. There have been so many changes to the way F1 does qualifying over the years its hard to keep up sometimes.

  8. Chris Brighton
    20th June 2014, 16:58

    But Hamilton reported a loss of power in P2. Rosberg in P1. This is worrying me for the rest of the weekend!

  9. Just imagine what the 2004-2005 cars would do around here with slicks and in this qualifying format. The 2014 cars would be like a milk float compared to them.

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