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Charles Leclerc ended the final session of practice on Friday on top of the timesheets in a disruptive outing that saw Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen end up in the barriers.
Verstappen was the first to hit the wall, as he spun at the final corner, stating that he lost the rear end while turning in.
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The Red Bull sustained heavy damage to its rear, however team principal Christian Horner confirmed that the gearbox in the car was a Friday unit, and therefore a penalty will not be imposed for a change.
The incident saw the red flag deployed while the marshals cleared away the stricken Red Bull, but only moments after the session resumed, did Bottas hit the wall.
The Mercedes driver lost the rear midway through Turn 5 and as he steered to corrected it, the car was thrown into the gravel and nose first into the barriers.
Sebastian Vettel also had a violent spin at the final corner shortly after Bottas' crash, but the Ferrari driver managed to avoid hitting the wall.
The multiple interruptions meant that the session's times weren't exactly representative, with Leclerc's time just over three-tenths ahead of Bottas', who ended the session in second place despite his accident.
Leclerc's lap time was a 1:05.086, which was slower than Lewis Hamilton's time from this morning. Hamilton himself was fourth in second practice, one spot down on Pierre Gasly.
McLaren retains the midfield lead
McLaren once again ended up as the fastest midfield team, with Carlos Sainz's time under half a second down on Leclerc for fifth place.
Towards the end of the session, the Spaniard lost the rear at the same point as Bottas, but managed to avoid losing control and took to the escape road beyond the gravel to rejoin the circuit.
Romain Grosjean was sixth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, who didn't set a hot lap after his spin. Max Verstappen was ninth, while Lando Norris rounded out the top ten.
However, the midfield fight looks to be close as behind Norris, Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez were just a couple of hundredths down.
Renault struggled to get up to speed in the session as Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo were 16th and 17th for the Enstone squad, ahead of Lance Stroll. and the Williams duo.
Red Bull Ring - 28 June 2019
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Replies (5)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I suppose Bottas Finn...ished... earlier than anticipated! ;D
f1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
Definitely not overused ;)
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Definitely not, and it is definitely still funny and surprising... (killmepleaseithurtstocornflakes!)
Kean
Posts: 692
Lance is hopelessly slow and George is very, very fast
abhidbgt
Posts: 283
Long runs for Mercedes looked better than Ferrari by quite some margin. Here's hoping for a Ferrari pole.