Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez ranked third, with the Ferrari and Red Bull drivers adrift from their top Class A rivals in the standings.
At the start of the 90-minute session at the Red Bull Ring, Romain Grosjean led the field: the Haas driver was looking to make up for lost time in FP1, where a brake problem had confined him to the garage for much of the morning. session.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz established the first real lap of the session, a 1m06.886s in the hard rubber, before Lance Stroll deposed him with a 1m05.469s in the media.
Max Verstappen then moved to first place after 20 minutes, with a 1m05.379s, also in the yellow walled media.
Hamilton completed a few laps in the early stages, but when he came out after 25 minutes in the middle he improved more than three laps to take first place with a 1m05.095s.
A few minutes later, the field switched to qualifying simulation efforts on the softs, with Sergio Pérez and his Racing Point teammate Stroll lighting up the time displays.
But while Perez grabbed P1 in a 1m04.945s, Stroll hitched the gravel trap as he flew through the swift right of Turn 8 and lost time, with both Racing Point riders demoted by Bottas’ 1m04.501s: the driver of Mercedes audibly attacks the curbs at the last two corners.
Sebastian Vettel placed his Ferrari in third place in its flight effort on the softs, but was unable to beat Pérez’s time for the best of the rest behind the Mercedes benchmark.
Shortly after Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen skated on the gravel trap off Turn 6, the left-hander in the middle sector, Hamilton moved to improve on that goal.
Using the softs installed in his freshly painted W11, the world champion reached the top of the times with a 1m04.304s, despite encountering a McLaren turning slowly off of Turn 3.
Hamilton’s effort put him 0.197s free of Bottas, with Perez and Vettel dragged to third and fourth place.
Times remained static thereafter when teams concentrated on long-term data collection, sealing Daniel Ricciardo (Renault), Lando Norris of McLaren and Stroll in P5-P7.
Max Verstappen finished eighth as Red Bull’s main driver, but his soft tire effort was 0.911s slower than Hamilton’s best.
Verstappen also had a position almost identical to the Raikkonen mark just after the hour, keeping his RB16 out of the barriers and back onto the track using the perimeter path beyond the gravel at Turn 6 to rejoin when the driver is directed by the race director. .
Alex Albon finished 13th in the other Red Bull after turning almost identical to his teammate in FP1 when he lost the back of his car running to the right with just over 20 minutes to go.
Charles Leclerc finished ninth to end a discreet day for Ferrari, with Sainz completing the top 10.
Albon was not the only driver to have a turn at Turn 1, with AlphaTauri driver Daniil Kvyat and Williams rookie Nicholas Latifi also going around in the early stages of the session.
Latifi also closed in and approached the narrow right hand to the left of Turn 3 shortly after his turn at Turn 1, with Bottas, Vettel, and Grosjean (who turned and finished 16th in the final order) also struggling. that corner during Later running.
The Mercedes session ended on a negative note, as Bottas reported that he was having trouble shifting with 10 minutes to go and was called in to allow the team to investigate the problem.
The FIA was again forced to take action regarding the limits of the track, with Kevin Magnussen (15th in the final order) missing an early time for running too much at Turn 9, and Raikkonen – P19, just ahead of Latifi at the end – having four laps eliminated for running repeatedly on the last turn.
