Verstappen heads Leclerc as Norris breaks down in Austria F1 practice

The reigning world champion, who has won four of the last six races at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, finished 0.255s clear of Ferrari’s Leclerc in the hour-long first practice, which was interrupted by two red flags caused by a stoppage for Lando Norris and debris on track. 

George Russell ended up just 0.4s off Verstappen’s timesheet-topping time in the W13 which was upgraded last time out at Silverstone, with Sergio Perez splitting the Mercedes drivers with a late improvement to go fourth. 

Lewis Hamilton was two-tenths of a second behind teammate Russell and 0.607s behind Verstappen in fifth. 

Kevin Magnussen took sixth place in his Haas, ahead of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso, who set his best lap time on the medium compound tyre.

Mick Schumacher and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10 for Haas and AlphaTauri respectively. 

Dismal session for McLaren 

It was a nightmare start to the weekend for McLaren, with Norris stopping on track after reporting an engine issue on his car. The Briton had earlier said he was stuck in 'limp home mode' at the beginning of the session. 

As a result of his stoppage, which caused the first red flag around 40 minutes in, Norris ended up slowest of all in 20th. 

FP1 went little better for McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who was only 17th-fastest after encountering a DRS issue on his car. 

It leaves McLaren with a lot of work to do ahead of qualifying on Friday afternoon, with Austria hosting the second sprint race of the season. 

The teams have more hour-long practice session on Saturday morning before the 24-lap sprint to set the order for Sunday's Grand Prix.