Lewis Hamilton once again headed a Mercedes 1-2 at Formula 1’s Austrian Grand Prix as he remained at the front of the pack in Friday's second practice session.
Hamilton, having topped the opening session, clocked a time of 1:04.579 on Pirelli’s Soft tyres as the forecast rain did not arrive at the Red Bull Ring.
Intriguingly Hamilton was unable to improve once he switched from Softs to the Ultrasoft compound on which he clocked the best time in the first session.
He nonetheless finished 0.176s clear of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who set his quickest time on the purple-banded compound, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel third.
Red Bull finished fourth and fifth on home ground, Daniel Ricciardo on Supersofts in front of Ultrasoft-clad team-mate Max Verstappen, with Kimi Raikkonen sixth for Ferrari.
Romain Grosjean again led the midfield charge in seventh place and this time had Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen for company, the pair the only non-frontrunners to get within a second of Hamilton.
Magnussen, though, had a far from straightforward session as he bounced across the grass through Turn 9 and was told to stop his VF-18 in the pit lane late on after a wheel was not firmly attached.
Pierre Gasly placed ninth despite suffering a suspension issue when he went wide over the entry kerb to the final corner, and used the Supersofts to achieve his time
Stoffel Vandoorne provided a ray of encouragement for McLaren as he completed the top 10, edging out Renault’s Carlos Sainz Jr. and the in-form Charles Leclerc.
Just half a second covered Vandoorne through to 19th-placed McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso in a tightly-congested midfield, indicating another fierce scrap for Q2 on Saturday.
Lance Stroll finished at the rear of the field, over two seconds down on Hamilton, and three-tenths behind Williams team-mate Sergey Sirotkin, who sat out the opening session.
