F1: Rosberg Beats Hamilton in FP1, but Hamilton Strikes back in FP2
It's been a long wait for Austria as F1 comes back to the mountains. The fight for the top spot is still on as the FP1 session saw a battle between the two Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of the first free practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix by setting a time of 1:11.295.
Hamilton was just 0.140s slower than Rosberg while Fernando Alonso was third quickest - just 0.3s off Rosberg . Massa was fourth fastest while Jenson Button was fifth after having topped the timesheets for a while in the middle of the session. It was the two Force India's, with Sergio Perez ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in sixth and seventh place as Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Jean-Eric Vergne completed the top ten.
Both the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel were nowhere in the picture as they struggled in the opening session and ended in 13th and 15th respectively at the team's home circuit.
As FP2 went underway, all eyes were on the Mercedes drivers to see who would triumph. Hamilton got back into the groove and ruled the time charts this time around by setting a lap time of 1:09.542s. Hamilton responded on the supersoft tyre runs by setting a 1:09.542 to go over 0.8s quicker than his Mercedes team-mate.
Yet again it was Fernando Alonso who set the third quickest time but was almost a full second slower on the supersoft tyres. Bottas and Massa were right up there for Williams as they finished in fourth and fifth place respectively.
Finally both the Red Bulls were back in action in FP2 following their bad performance in FP1. Vettel managed to go sixth fastest while Daniel Ricciardo could manage eighth place. Jenson Button squeezed in between the two Red Bulls and complained that his car could not be driven in high speed corners. Magnussen and Jean-Eric Vergne completed the top ten drivers of the FP2 session.
We are expecting Rosberg to fight back when it comes to the FP3 and Qualifying sessions tomorrow and Mercedes, yet again, has a battle on their hands.
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