Toto Wolff has explained how Mercedes took an "experimental" approach to Friday's first practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix. With the F1 Sprint format returning for the second time this season at the Red Bull Ring, only one hour of practice was slotted in before qualifying. Mercedes started the weekend with both cars in the top five positions, continuing their encouraging Silverstone performance – which saw Lewis Hamilton join the fight for victory. However, with third-placed George Russell a couple of tenths quicker than fifth-placed Hamilton in FP1, Wolff has suggested that the seven-time World Champion could take on some findings from his teammate's car.
Wolff discusses Mercedes' approach to Austrian GP practice
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the session, Wolff said: "I think we've been okay. We're experimenting with some set-ups. "It was not a catastrophe for both, but there's things that we had on George's car that [we can] probably adopt on Lewis' now." Wolff did, however, appear to indicate that Red Bull and Ferrari are a step ahead, with Russell four-tenths off the FP1 pace set by Max Verstappen. "You need to consider that the lap time is very short, so a tenth is probably two-tenths on a normal track," he added.
Mercedes making more progress with bouncing
As for the team's ongoing fight against the effects of porpoising and general bouncing, Wolff reported further progress. "It was not bad in terms of the bouncing. I think we start to slowly get on top of these things," he commented. "I wouldn't know what [would] happen if we were going to go to Baku – probably similar. But we are getting on top of it. "We know that our car is not the quickest on a single lap, but we have a quick race car."
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