2018 Formula One Season ***Possible Spoilers***

FP1 and FP2 results


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Sauber's Charles Leclerc is poised to move to Ferrari next season.
The 20-year-old has agreed, but not signed, a two-year deal to be Sebastian Vettel's team-mate until 2020, according to a source close to Ferrari.
The move comes after an impressive start to Leclerc's F1 career this year with Sauber, including points finishes in four of the last five races.
If the deal is confirmed, it would mean the end of 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen's five-year stay at Ferrari.
The team said it declined to comment on what it described as "media speculation".
Leclerc, who comes from Monaco and is a member of the Ferrari driver academy, is the reigning Formula Two champion and was given his Sauber seat this year with the intention of blooding him for a future at Ferrari.

The plan was to promote Leclerc after one season as long as he delivered on his obvious potential, and he has done exactly that.
After a shaky start to the season with mistakes in the first three races, Leclerc took a step forward at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April, where he took the unfancied Sauber to sixth place.
Since then, he has finished 10th at the Spanish, Canadian and French Grands Prix, and demonstrated impressive race-craft, including holding off two-time champion Fernando Alonso's McLaren for half the race in Barcelona.
Leclerc - the godson of former F1 driver Jules Bianchi, who died in 2015from injuries sustained in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix - told BBC Sport at last month's Monaco Grand Prix: "It is a dream since [I was] a child to drive for the red cars so hopefully this will happen one day.
"I will give everything for it to happen next year but the decision is not in my hands and the only thing I can do is give the best of myself on track and then hopefully it will be enough to consider me for the seat next year."
Assuming the Leclerc deal is finalised, Raikkonen's career is in danger of being over.
There have been reports this week linking the 38-year-old Finn with a move to McLaren, but their priority is to keep Fernando Alonso as their lead driver.
The Spaniard won Le Mansthis year and is two-thirds of the way towards completing his ambition of winning motorsport's unofficial 'triple crown' of the Monaco Grand Prix, which Alonso has won twice, Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500.

 

POSTED BY: EDITOR | 29 JUN 2018 | 4:56 PM GMT | 4 COMMENTS
Championship leader Lewis Hamilton topped the time sheets and headed a Friday clean sweep for a Mercedes team who look to be the early favourites at the Red Bull Ring.

Although assisted by the additional DRS zone, Hamilton’s fastest lap was just three tenths short of last year’s pole position time, set on an early run on the soft-compound tyre, the most durable compound available this weekend.

However, his qualifying simulation on the ultrasoft tyre generated lap times close to his earlier benchmark, prompting conclusions that the performance difference between the compounds is smaller than expected.

Valtteri Bottas saw only marginal improvements on his qualifying attempts, with the Finn setting a time 0.176 of a second off the pace.



Third-placed Sebastian Vettel’s best lap was set on the ultrasoft tyre, but the lead Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo registered his best lap on the supersoft tyre, less than one tenth of a second ahead of his ultrasoft-shod team-mate Max Verstappen, who completed the day with a damaged floor. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished at the foot of the lead group.

“I don’t think it was a perfect day, we had a damaged floor,” confirmed Verstappen after practice.

“Something broke off the inside of the floor, so my second practice session I had to run with a floor that was a little bit cut, let’s say it like that.

“It’s not from the outside sausage kerb, it’s from the inside, I guess it was just vibrations of whatever.

“It was anyway an old floor. We’ll put on a new one tomorrow, but today we had to be a bit limited on that, so that definitely compromised the downforce of my car a bit.”

Mercedes’ advantage appeared to extend into the high-fuel runs, too.

With both Hamilton and Bottas being able to trouble the low-1:07s and the high-1:08s on both the soft and supersoft tyres, Vettel looked to be the only driver competing with those times, with Raikkonen and the Red Bulls further back in the mid-1:08 lap times.

The Haas duo of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, looking to continue their strong pace demonstrated at Paul Ricard, finished in seventh and eighth. However, the latter endured a stop-start day, suffering from floor damage in FP1 and power-related issues in FP2, as well as being released from his pit box with a wheel not properly attached.

Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly failed to complete a qualifying simulation, but his earlier supersoft tyre run was still good enough for a place in the top ten. Mid-way through the session, the Frenchman ran over the higher yellow kerbs on the exit of turn nine and damaged part of his steering geometry, meaning he had to pull over and cause the only red flag of the session.



On paper, McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne completed a solid day for McLaren with a place in the top ten. However, the Belgian was one of many drivers pushing the limits of the run-off areas and shedding bodywork.

He damaged his front wing over the kerbs and lost running time in free practice one, but his team was involved in a careless near-miss with Vettel in the pit lane.

With Vettel already cruising down the pit lane, Vandoorne was released from his garage too early, causing the Ferrari to slam on the brakes. McLaren were fined €10,000.

There were other off-track excursions for the likes of Verstappen, Magnussen, Carlos Sainz, Marcus Ericsson, Gasly and Raikkonen among others during the day.

Major upgrades from Mercedes and Renault

In the 2018 development race, Mercedes come to Austria with some of the most noticeable changes to their car. Although they have remained tight-lipped on their upgrades, their cars have arrived with updated sidepods and barge boards.

Further down the field, McLaren and Toro Rosso are seeking to make strides in the midfield battle by introducing new front wings this weekend.

Of the power unit suppliers, Renault were the ones to bring the biggest updates to Austria.

Having conducted tests at the previous round at Paul Ricard, a ‘qualifying’ mode – a feature which has been one of the main advantages of the Mercedes and Ferrari power units for some time – will be made available to all Renault-powered cars from this weekend.



In addition to this, a long-awaited updated MGU-K has been brought to the Red Bull Ring. This will be used by both of the Renaults and McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne, with all other cars remaining with the old MGU-K for the time being.

All three drivers can take a new MGU-K penalty-free, but the remaining Renault-powered cars belonging to Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso would all receive grid penalties if they choose to take the upgrade, because they have already used their maximum allocation of two MGU-Ks.

“It’s available for all the cars that want it,” Cyril Abiteboul told Motorsport.com this week. “It happens that not all teams have elected to go to the new spec.

“It’s one that we’ve been long awaiting, but it’s a bit of a problem that some teams have elected not to use it, which means that they will continue to use the MGU-K of a previous technical definition, with a higher reliability risk.

“But that’s our philosophy, to accept the teams’ choice, having all the information.”

AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX, Free Practice
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m04.579s – 37
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m04.755s 0.176s 42
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m04.815s 0.236s 53
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m05.031s 0.452s 48
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m05.125s 0.546s 48
6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m05.265s 0.686s 42
7 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m05.429s 0.850s 38
8 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m05.559s 0.980s 41
9 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 1m05.758s 1.179s 31
10 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Renault 1m05.930s 1.351s 47
11 Carlos Sainz Renault 1m05.999s 1.420s 38
12 Charles Leclerc Sauber/Ferrari 1m06.096s 1.517s 30
13 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m06.133s 1.554s 43
14 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m06.199s 1.620s 29
15 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m6.273s 1.694s 42
16 Sergey Sirotkin Williams/Mercedes 1m06.326s 1.747s 49
17 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Honda 1m06.332s 1.753s 55
18 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m06.354s 1.775s 48
19 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Renault 1m06.429s 1.850s 33
20 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m06.626s 2.047s 44

By: Luke Murphy

 

FP 3


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Great..... Just great. Qualifying

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wow danny....have a big fat whinge, why don't you?

 

BREAKING: Sebastian Vettel will serve a three-place grid penalty at Sunday's #AustrianGP

 

Revised Austrian GP grid: Top 10
1. Valtteri Bottas Mercedes
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
3. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari
4. Max Verstappen Red Bull
5. Romain Grosjean Haas
6. Sebastian Vettel Ferrari
7. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull
8. Kevin Magnussen Haas
9. Carlos Sainz Renault
10. Nico Hulkenberg Renault

 

The old track.

 

Are we going to see Vettel at his brilliant best, or will we see the famous Vettel brain fade??

 

Lewis the philosopher

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What a pass by Vettel! I hope his tyres last.

 

Hamilton's parking sport...what a prick! Everyone else tries to get out of the way...not him!

 

Damn good race

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I reckon they should have too.... Imagine if he loses by 2 points