» Verstappen shades Bottas in FP2

Max Verstappen’s goal of returning to race-winning form had a boost on Friday afternoon’s second practice session for the Styrian Grand Prix, with the Dutch driver posting the fastest overall time at Red Bull Racing’s home venue.

The Dutch driver narrowly beat last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix race-winner Valtteri Bottas to top spot to the tune of just 0.043 seconds. His fastest time, a 1:03.660, was still around seven-tenths of a second slower than Bottas’ pole-winning time from last weekend.

The Racing Point Mercedes’ continued to match the pace that had seen Sergio Pérez fastest of all in today’s earlier FP1 session, with the Mexican heading teammate Lance Stroll to third- and fourth-fastest on the timesheets.

Carlos Sainz Jr was the quicker of the McLarens and wound up fifth-fastest overall, while Bottas’ teammate Lewis Hamilton appeared comparatively out of sorts in his Mercedes W11 and placed sixth on the timesheets – nearly a whopping 0.7 seconds slower than the Finn.

Verstappen’s teammate Alexander Albon struggled with a tail-happy RB16 and demonstrated this with a spin at Turn 3 followed by another rotation through the Turn 7/8 sequence. Nonetheless, he finished seventh-fastest but nearly eight-tenths down on Verstappen’s benchmark time.

Lando Norris’ prospects of matching his career-best qualifying performance last weekend are dead after the Briton was handed a three-place penalty for a yellow flag breach in FP1. The English youngster finished the session eighth-fastest, with his lap tally hindered by an onset of pains in his chest for which he is receiving treatment.

Updates to the Ferrari SF1000 do not appear to have improved the Italian team’s fortunes greatly. Charles Leclerc was the better-placed of the duo, lapping ninth-fastest, while teammate Sebastian Vettel was an unrepresentative P16 after having several lap times deleted for track limit violations.

Renault’s Esteban Ocon completed the top ten, however teammate Daniel Ricciardo was sidelined after a heavy crash at Turn 9 on just his second lap of the session. The Australian couldn’t catch a snap of oversteer as he turned into the high-speed right-hander, sliding backwards into the tyre wall on the outside of the track.

Daniel Ricciardo, Renault Sport R.S.20 - 2020 Styrian Grand Prix

Daniel Ricciardo’s session ended early with a heavy crash at Turn 9.

Ricciardo banged his knees in the impact and visited the circuit medical centre for a check-up, but perhaps worse is the extensive damage to his R.S.20 which will require lengthy repairs tonight.

With very wet weather forecast for tomorrow, there is a chance of no running at all on Saturday which could lead to the cancellation of qualifying. With a packed event schedule meaning a postponement to Sunday is unlikely, the starting grid order could be determined by the results of FP2.

This would put Ricciardo at the back of the grid behind the two Haas Ferraris of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean – both struggled for pace and neither was able to lap within two seconds of Verstappen’s session-topping effort.

FORMULA 1 ROLEX GROβER PREIS VON STEIERMARK 2020 – FREE PRACTICE SESSION 2
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing RB16	1:03.660		27
2.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes-AMG F1 Team W11	1:03.703	+ 0.043	36
3.	Sergio Pérez	Racing Point F1 Team RP20	1:03.877	+ 0.217	43
4.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point F1 Team RP20	1:04.241	+ 0.581	43
5.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren F1 Team MCL35	1:04.333	+ 0.673	45
6.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG F1 Team W11	1:04.348	+ 0.688	27
7.	Alexander Albon	Red Bull Racing RB16	1:04.437	+ 0.777	29
8.	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team MCL35	1:04.541	+ 0.881	31
9.	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari SF1000	1:04.706	+ 1.046	35
10.	Esteban Ocon	Renault F1 Team R.S.20	1:04.746	+ 1.086	32
11.	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia AlfaTauri AT01	1:04.757	+ 1.097	37
12.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia AlfaTauri AT01	1:05.050	+ 1.390	34
13.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo Racing C39	1:05.152	+ 1.492	23
14.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing C39	1:05.365	+ 1.705	36
15.	George Russell	Williams Racing FW43	1:05.588	+ 1.928	34
16.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF1000	1:05.613	+ 1.953	40
17.	Nicholas Latifi	Williams Racing FW43	1:05.655	+ 1.995	49
18.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team VF-20	1:05.790	+ 2.130	36
19.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team VF-20	1:06.096	+ 2.436	38
20.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team R.S.20	no time		1