Max Verstappen suffers late 360-degree spin as Lando Norris sets crushing Austrian GP pace

Lando Norris continued his domination of Austrian Grand Prix practice to tee himself up for qualifying, although the McLaren driver faces a stern challenge from team-mate Oscar Piastri and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

After missing FP1 to allow 19-year-old Irishman Alex Dunne an F1 debut for the team, Norris was comfortably quickest in FP2 ahead of Piastri.

It was a case of deja vu for final practice, with Norris posting a time of 1:04.324s, just 0.010s adrift of Max Verstappen's pole time from last year. Piastri again had to settle for second on the timesheet, 0.118s adrift, with Verstappen third fastest, 0.210s down.

The session ended with a moment of consternation for Verstappen. At one point he was forced to swerve out of the way of incoming Pierre Gasly in his Alpine through Turn 10. The Frenchman was not happy.

Soon after, Verstappen then spun through 360 degrees in the same corner, but was as cool as a cucumber over the radio with a message of, 'Yeah! A little 360!'.

Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and fifth.

Norris takes charge

Following a four-minute lull before the first car took to the track, it was Verstappen who set the opening time with a 1:06.131s a few minutes later, albeit on a set of hard tyres he needed to burn off given the sets available to him coming into the session.

After 10 minutes, Alpine's Franco Colapinto was the only other driver to have posted a time, however, 1.385s adrift of Verstappen on the medium rubber.

Following a couple of cool-down laps for Verstappen, he upped the ante on his white-striped Pirellis with a lap of 1:05.818s before radioing through that his RB21 was "nervous" and "snappy" on occasion in "getting back on throttle".

On soft tyres, Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda popped up into second on the timesheet, 0.110s adrift before the Dutchman stretched his advantage on another hot lap on the hards by 0.360s.

It was shortlived, though, as Friday pacesetter Norris moved ahead by 0.156s on softs. A follow-up lap after cooling his tyres saw him set a superb pace with a 1:04.888s, three-tenths slower than his leading lap less than 24 hours previously.

After a difficult Friday for Ferrari, Hamilton lifted himself into second, 0.380s behind Norris beyond which the running settled down for a period as the teams and drivers geared themselves up for the end-of-session qualifying simulation laps.

Leclerc managed to split Norris and Hamilton with 22 minutes remaining with a lap of 1:05.157s, before Russell edged ahead of the Monégasque by 0.035s.

With 15 minutes remaining, and after a small mistake into Turn 1 that forced Norris to cool down before going again, he set a superb lap of 1:04.324s, which proved to be the best overall.

Piastri, following a run into the gravel out of Turn 9, returned to the circuit and regained his composure with a time 0.118s behind Norris, who seemed set to go even quicker with a purple 16.2s first sector only to make an error into Turn 3 with a slide over the kerb.

Moments beforehand, on his first push lap on soft tyres, Verstappen managed to get within two-tenths of a second of Norris, with Leclerc a quarter of a second back in fourth.

The closing moments were mistake riddled, notably for Racing Bull's Isack Hadjar who also spun out of Turn 10, as well as four-time F1 champion Verstappen, whilst Tsunoda spun out of Turn 1.

Behind the leading quintet, Russell and team-mate Kimi Antonelli were sixth and seventh respectively, followed by Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, Tsunoda and Stake's Gabriel Bortoleto, who finished 0.858s down.

Hadjar was slowest of all, 1.699s off the pace.