Hamilton: Red Bull 'throwing good punches' as Verstappen dominates F1 practice

The current F1 championship leader topped both practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring as Verstappen looks to win his third race in four rounds.

The Dutchman headed the afternoon session by over 0.3s clear of McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Had it not been for a track extension at Turn 10 on his fastest lap, Hamilton would have been on top in FP2.

Hamilton was left concerned by Red Bull’s impressive race pace in second practice.

“I will do everything I can during the evening to make the right steps in the right direction but generally eking most of it out of the car,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know if it’s a four-tenths gap, we’ll see tomorrow, I think one of my laps got taken away and it was a lot closer.

“So yeah, it’s close, but particularly in the race pace they were really really strong, and they’re throwing some really good punches right now so we’ve just got to have our guards up and make sure we’re ready for the return.”

Like at the Circuit Paul Ricard last weekend, Hamilton says Mercedes is losing out the most on the straights relative to Red Bull.

“It was okay,” Hamilton added when asked about the handling of his Mercedes. “Work in progress. Been a beautiful day, of course, it was spitting a bit but the track is awesome, a little bit down obviously particularly over a single lap.

“But generally over a day the car felt relatively solid, some weaknesses, but as I said coming into the weekend losing on the straight, a considerable amount, so we’ve just got to keep working to rectify that.”