Promise demonstrated on first day of running in Spielberg.

• George Russell will start Saturday’s F1 Sprint in Austria from P4 with team-mate Lewis Hamilton P6.
• In the solitary hour of practice, the team focused on honing its race pace. Lewis only ran the white-walled Hard tyre whilst George used the Soft compound tyre for a single push lap, albeit unable to set a representative time due to traffic.
• Both drivers progressed through to SQ3 in Sprint Qualifying, although it took two efforts for Lewis to progress from SQ1 after having his initial time deleted for track limits.
• The session was further compromised for Lewis as he picked up floor damage, costing him downforce and therefore performance.
• In SQ3, neither driver felt that they optimised their single flying efforts and therefore will line up on the second and third rows respectively for tomorrow’s Sprint.
  
  

George Russell

The Soft tyre felt very good, and my lap felt strong. I was therefore a little surprised at the gap to P1, but I likely pushed too hard on the out lap. That potentially took a little of the peak grip away from the tyre. From in the car, it felt like the best lap of the session, so that is probably the explanation for why we dropped a little bit further back.

P4 is still a decent place to be starting for the Sprint tomorrow. We are in the fight for the podium. Our focus is of course on Qualifying and the Grand Prix, but this is just another validation that we are on the right track and in the mix near the front.

Lewis Hamilton

I had a difficult Sprint Qualifying today. Practice went well and the car felt good. I don’t think we had the pace to fight for pole position for the Sprint, but we likely had more speed than we showed. I wasn’t happy with any of my laps and Sprint Qualifying was quite a messy session overall.

The Sprint race tomorrow will be challenging. It’s not easy to overtake around here and starting P6 makes it difficult for us. If it’s not an eventful race, then I don’t think we will be able to move forward too many places. Nevertheless, we will still be giving it our all. Our main focus though is of course on Qualifying later in the afternoon and Sunday’s race.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We had a solid FP1. Both cars managed a good amount of long run work, and, on the Hard tyre, we were looking similar to Barcelona in terms of competitiveness. Sprint Qualifying was quite straightforward although in SQ3 we were first out on track. It was important not to risk missing the flag but that does make it difficult to get the benefit of the track evolution. We hoped for a bit better than P4 and P6 but our performance on the Soft compound wasn't strong enough to challenge for better. Lewis picked up some floor damage and wasn't happy with his laps. George felt that he needed to a bit more high-speed grip to go faster, so we are looking at how to make a few improvements overnight.

Our aim is to score decent points in the Sprint tomorrow morning, but it's also useful as long run preparation ahead of Sunday's race. We've also got the opportunity to tweak the car for main Qualifying after the Sprint. We know where we need to improve so hopefully, we can make a bit of ground up and start a little closer to the front for the race on Sunday.