Sebastian Vettel finished on top of the time charts at the Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday. The two Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, finished behind the Ferrari driver.

Sebastian Vettel Tops Final Practice Session

The 60-minute long free practice session started under cloudy, but improving weather. The air temperature was 23 degrees C and the track temperature was 30 degrees C. The Pirelli tyre choice at this race is the yellow striped Soft tyre, red striped Supersoft tyre, and purple striped Ultrasoft tyre.

Vettel Avoids Trouble In Hectic Session

The weekend-long trend of brutal kerbs damaging cars continued with Brendan Hartley getting the worst of it in this session. A part of Hartley’s front wing was torn off, ending his session early. Stoffel Vandoorne‘s car saw a similar fate nearly right after.

Panic For The Sauber and Red Bull Garage

Both Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc had major car issues, making them pull over at trackside and get towed back to the pits. Verstappen saw his issue in sector 2, where on the radio he told his team that the engine “just turned off.” Verstappen’s dashboard went fully black. Leclerc’s issue was similar but also different, as while his dashboard stayed on, he suspected he had an engine issue. He pulled over just after leaving the pit exit.

Frustration boiled over for Pierre Gasly when Esteban Ocon was blocking his way, saying “(It’s) always the same story with him (Ocon)”, while struggling to get past him on the track.

Some teams scrambled to fix their cars for the fast approaching Qualifying session while other teams have time to fine tune the setup in the meantime.

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