“It’s great to be back.” Lewis Hamilton summed up the mood in the Red Bull Ring paddock after Formula 1 cars finally hit the track on a race weekend in 2020.
The Mercedes driver, along with teammate Valtteri Bottas, was on the pace from the start, the pair secured a double for the world champions in both practice sessions on Friday. So is that a sign of what’s to come this weekend? Time to look at the data …
READ MORE: Hamilton leads another Mercedes 1-2 with Perez from Racing Point third in Austria
Rhythm of a lap
The timesheet for Friday’s second practice session, where teams completed their first genuine weekend race on low fuel and soft tires, was a grim read for anyone not driving a Mercedes.
Aiming for his seventh world title this year and sixth in seven years, Hamilton was in brilliant form, posting a time that was 0.641s faster than any other car on the field.
Sergio Pérez, who was driving a Racing Point that has been called ‘the pink Mercedes’ given how similar it looks to the W10, the most victorious last year, was the closest challenger, but when we beat the numbers, he told a different story.
Actually, it was Ferrari, who entered this weekend with little expectation, the second fastest in a lap, when we corrected the lap times for fuel. However, while Sebastian Vettel described it as a “decent” day, he hinted that they might be looking to stop those behind, rather than bringing the fight to Mercedes.
READ MORE: Ferrari Performance ‘Even Worse Than Expected’ Leclerc Admits After Difficult Start In Austria
It remains to be seen whether or not they will compete against the crash artists Racing Point when it matters, but the pink cars certainly delivered on their earlier-season promise based on how they practiced.
Lance Stroll described it as the best Friday he has had with the team, the Canadian happy with the feel and balance of the car, while Sergio Pérez focused on attacking the big teams rather than competing in the midfield.
Renault and McLaren were next and tied with Red Bull for one lap. For Renault, which tested at the Red Bull Ring last month, they were “positive” about their chances, particularly in qualifying.
FP2 Highlights: Austrian Grand Prix 2020
McLaren was also encouraged by his pace in relation to Renault, but both Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris referenced Racing Point’s impressive speed and believe it could be too much for them this weekend.
READ MORE: Racing Point ‘Too Far’ From Rest Of Midfield, Sainz Of McLaren Admits
Red Bull was perhaps the surprise on this metric, until Max Verstappen told me he broke his front wing on his push lap, and then when he got back on track they went with a different wing and said they were “too aggressive” with that.
The feeling is that there’s a lot more to come from a team that has heavily updated their car for this weekend, with a power and reliability upgrade from Honda to boot.
Williams was surprised seventh in this metric, it is not often that we have said it in recent years. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the case on Saturday, as while George Russell acknowledges that they have taken a step forward, getting out of Q1 might be too much to ask now, but the upside is that they appear to be going in the right direction.
Running pace
You might not be surprised to see Mercedes at the top of this metric, as they often are, but you may be surprised at the significant gap with the rest of the pack.
Racing Point continues to cause a stir, making its pre-weekend goals of bringing the fight to the Big Three seem more realistic. They had just 0.4s / slow lap in their long runs, a fraction ahead of Red Bull.
It is here that Red Bull managed to back off a bit, although they will still have suffered from Verstappen ruining a set of tires when they stumbled upon the gravel, the Dutchman was unable to gather representative long-term data on that set of lap times.
Ferrari came in fourth, with data calculated based on calculated fuel loads, with Charles Leclerc admitting that the team has to “work hard enough to achieve overall performance.”
He hinted that they seem to lose speed in the corners. According to our data, as you can see from the graph, they are a fraction of Mercedes in low speed, an area that has definitely improved compared to last year, but among the bottom half of teams in average speed.
They cut that deficit in high-speed stuff to just 0.06s drifting from the Silver Arrows, but in power bets, they were oddly on par with McLaren, AlphaTauri and Williams and well below Racing Point and Renault.
Alfa Romeo performed well in the long term, despite the fact that neither Kimi Raikkonen nor Antonio Giovinazzi seemed so happy with the car, with Alfa Romeo in fifth place to AlphaTauri in tenth, separated by only 0.7s / lap in what is a very short track, suggesting it could be a pretty tasty fight on Sunday.
READ MORE: Hamilton taking the strong pace of Mercedes Friday ‘with a pinch of salt’
Verdict
At first glance, it looks like Mercedes is ready to start its defense in the best possible way this year, as strong as they were on Friday. But let’s not forget that last year, there was a Ferrari and a Mercedes in the front row, but Verstappen’s Red Bull in third place, which fell to eighth at the start, was the driver who claimed victory, so by no means it is inevitable. conclusion.
Then there is the weather to consider, with temperatures that will increase and cloud cover will decrease, raising the heat of the track and providing conditions that teams will have very limited data on Friday, given that it was humid early and generally cooler in dry.
And we await the result of the protest presented by Red Bull regarding the Mercedes DAS system. They want to know if the groundbreaking device, which got so much attention in preseason testing, is legal. Mercedes believes yes, after having conversations with the FIA, so it will be interesting to see how the commissioners govern.
If it were legal, Red Bull could try adding its own version to its car, leaving Mercedes free to use its innovation from FP3 onwards. If not, Mercedes will have to remove the system from the car, which could hamper your chances this weekend.
Much, then, to wait. We have already gone further than in Australia, with a day race on the track. This is another captivating day on Saturday and hopefully an intriguing race, much like last year’s cookie on Sunday.
FORM GUIDE: Why does recent history favor Verstappen in Austria?
