» Bottas and Verstappen crash out of FP2

Friday’s second practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix spelled disaster for two of the event’s former winners, Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen, who both ended their sessions early in the barriers. At the end of a heavily disrupted session, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc emerged quickest overall.

Verstappen was the first driver to come to grief falling victim to windy conditions. The Red Bull Racing driver lost the back end of his RB15 as he rounded the final corner, spinning his car and sliding backwards into the barriers. It was a heavy impact, prompting the officials to bring out the red flags.

“I was already complaining all my laps about the wind being really tricky. In some places, [I was] just losing the rear. I got into that corner and suddenly, you can see in the data, the rear turned around,” Verstappen explained later.

“Crashes can happen unfortunately, but maybe it’s a good thing because they’ll take the whole car apart so [fit] a few new parts on it!”

The session was restarted with 45 minutes to go but suspended again just a few minutes later when 2017 race winner Bottas crashed at Turn 6. The Finn’s Mercedes broke free at the rear on the approach to the left-hander, spearing him into the gravel before he could catch the slide. He crashed nose-first into the barriers – the impact measured 23G – heavily damaging the front end of his car but was thankfully uninjured.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 W10 - 2019 Austrian Grand Prix

Valtteri Bottas compromised his weekend’s preparations with a heavy crash at Turn 6.

It looked as though the session was heading for its third red flag interruption when, just minutes after the second restart, Sebastian Vettel appeared to replicate Verstappen’s high-speed spin at the final corner. The German somehow kept his Ferrari out of the barriers, sheepishly returning to the pits with heavily flat-spotted tyres.

The disruptions and yellow flags coincided with the time when drivers typically aim to perform their qualifying-style runs ahead of longer, higher-fuel runs later on. The net effect, therefore, was a rather inconclusive result on the timesheets with Vettel and championship leader Lewis Hamilton both unable to post a representative lap time that would indicate their true one-lap pace.

Vettel’s teammate Charles Leclerc ended the session fastest overall with a time marginally quicker than the lap time posted by Hamilton to go fastest in FP1. Bottas finished second-fastest despite losing half of the session, while Verstappen’s teammate Pierre Gasly – who had his own trip off-track at Turn 4 – was third-quickest in the sole remaining RB15.

With Hamilton fourth-fastest, an impressive fifth-quickest was the McLaren of Carlos Sainz who repeated his strong form in FP1. Despite the knowledge that he will be starting Sunday’s race at the back of the grid due to taking on a raft of new Renault power unit elements, the Spaniard continued to push hard and even had his own off-track moment at Turn 6 at the end of the session.

Completing the top ten were Haas’ Romain Grosjean and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen – ahead of Vettel’s Ferrari in P8 – with Verstappen ninth-fastest ahead of the second McLaren of Lando Norris.

FORMULA 1 MYWORLD GROSSER PREIS VON ÖSTERREICH 2019 – FREE PRACTICE SESSION 2
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari SF90	1:05.086		37
2.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes-AMG Motorsport W10	1:05.417	+ 0.331	12
3.	Pierre Gasly	Red Bull Racing RB15	1:05.487	+ 0.401	33
4.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG Motorsport W10	1:05.529	+ 0.443	43
5.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren F1 Team MCL34	1:05.545	+ 0.459	44
6.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team VF-19	1:05.701	+ 0.615	38
7.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo Racing C38	1:05.728	+ 0.642	37
8.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF90	1:05.871	+ 0.785	34
9.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing RB15	1:05.879	+ 0.793	13
10.	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team MCL34	1:05.952	+ 0.866	48
11.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team VF-19	1:05.960	+ 0.874	41
12.	Sergio Pérez	Racing Point F1 Team RP19	1:05.964	+ 0.878	43
13.	Alexander Albon	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda STR14	1:06.064	+ 0.978	46
14.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing C38	1:06.119	+ 1.033	37
15.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda STR14	1:06.148	+ 1.062	38
16.	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault F1 Team RS19	1:06.249	+ 1.163	27
17.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team RS19	1:06.418	+ 1.332	30
18.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point F1 Team RP19	1:06.829	+ 1.743	40
19.	George Russell	ROKiT Williams Racing FW42	1:07.217	+ 2.131	27
20.	Robert Kubica	ROKiT Williams Racing FW42	1:08.508	+ 3.422	38