McLaren sent a clear message in Friday’s second free practice session at the Red Bull Ring, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri locking out the top two positions as the sun began to set over Spielberg.
After sitting out FP1 to allow rookie Alexander Dunne some track time, Norris returned to his MCL38 and immediately delivered, setting the pace with a best lap of 1:04.580. He edged out teammate Piastri by 157 thousandths of a second, underlining McLaren’s growing momentum in the 2025 campaign.
Max Verstappen slotted into third, 318 thousandths behind Norris. Racing on Red Bull’s home turf, the Dutchman continued to acclimatise to temporary changes on his pit wall, with Simon Rennie stepping in as race engineer for Gianpiero Lambiase, who is absent for personal reasons but expected to return next weekend at Silverstone.
A surprise came from Lance Stroll, who placed fourth with a gap of 0.442 seconds to the front, edging out Charles Leclerc. Like Norris, Leclerc had ceded his car in FP1, in his case to Ferrari Academy driver Dino Beganovic, and ended the session fifth, over six tenths adrift of the McLaren lead.
Lewis Hamilton could manage only tenth fastest, 931 thousandths off the pace — a considerable margin on the short Austrian circuit. He finished just ahead of his young Mercedes teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who repeated his 11th-place result from the earlier session.
There was early drama involving the two Silver Arrows. Hamilton had a misunderstanding with Antonelli at the start of the session and later issued an apology. Nonetheless, the seven-time world champion was summoned to the stewards. Antonelli also received a €100 fine for exceeding the pit lane speed limit of 80 km/h.
George Russell, who topped FP1 and won last year’s Austrian Grand Prix, ended FP2 in sixth place, 649 thousandths behind Norris, leaving Mercedes with work to do ahead of Saturday’s qualifying.
