Austria – Free Practice 1: Rosberg with Flair

The Mercedes hegemony still doesn’t seem to falter. Indeed, as usual, the Hamilton-Rosberg duo once again dominated the scene. Usually dominated from Saturday morning, Nico Rosberg immediately asserted himself and maintained a gap of about three-tenths with his much more discreet teammate. There’s no doubt that the English driver will be more formidable this weekend, perhaps even as soon as this afternoon.

At Ferrari, although Räikkönen’s result is quite honorable, reliability, which has so far been one of the Scuderia’s strengths, is beginning to falter in light of Vettel’s retirement less than half an hour after the session opened. “I lost the transmission” he explained over the radio, before returning to the pits all smiles.

Furthermore, Lotus test driver Jolyon Palmer, who, let us remember, replaces Romain Grosjean, takes 14th place, just behind Le Mans winner Nico Hülkenberg and his teammate, Pastor Maldonado. The three drivers are within less than a tenth of each other.

The poleman of the 2014 edition, Felipe Massa, almost ran over Maurizio Arrivabene in the early session during an uneventful pit exit. Ranked 9th, he is more than 0.4 seconds behind his teammate, Valtteri Bottas (4th).

Note that for their home Grand Prix, the Red Bulls, respectively 6th and 7th, did not seem to be significantly distanced by the competition. However, both cars received new power units this Friday and will start with a ten-place grid penalty.

At the bottom of the standings, things aren’t looking up for the McLaren-Honda team. Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, in 16th and 17th respectively, are expecting a weekend as disappointing as that in Canada, especially since Alonso, penalized by twenty grid places, was immediately forced to return to his garage due to mechanical issues at the start of the session, visibly irritated by these new setbacks. Jenson Button’s McLaren is eight-tenths behind Marcus Ericsson’s Sauber.