Lewis Hamilton’s bid to capitalise on his first Ferrari victory suffered a dent after he finished a distant fifth in opening practice for the Austrian Grand Prix.
Hamilton delivered an unstoppable performance in Barcelona a fortnight ago to claim his maiden triumph for the Italian giants and appeared to stake his claim as a genuine title contender.
However, the 41-year-old was no match for Mercedes in the first running of the weekend in the Styrian Mountains after he lapped 0.665 seconds slower than championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
Antonelli, who holds a 41-point lead over Hamilton heading into the eighth of a scheduled 22 rounds, edged out Mercedes team-mate George Russell by just 0.040 sec with Oscar Piastri taking third for McLaren.
Piastri finished 0.117 sec off the pace with Max Verstappen, who broke down twice in the pit lane in the early moments of practice, fourth, nearly three tenths behind.
Lando Norris missed a large chunk of the session with a hydraulic leak and completed only nine laps. The world champion finished seventh in the order.
Hamilton raised hope of muscling his way into Mercedes’ intra-team championship fight with a dominant win last time out.
But the seven-time world champion, despite being armed with an engine upgrade here, has work to do with Ferrari trailing their rivals.
Mercedes have won six of the first seven races, with Antonelli taking five consecutive wins to establish a strong lead at the summit of the standings.
For Russell, the Englishman will be keen to land his first triumph since the season opener in Australia and reduce the deficit to Antonelli ahead of his home race at Silverstone a week on Sunday.
Elsewhere, Arvid Lindblad finished sixth for RB, a spot clear of Norris, with Williams’ Franco Colapinto eighth. The concluding practice session gets under way at 17:00 local time (16:00 BST).
