Russell sets an exclamation mark in the first training session in Spielberg!

Russell sets an exclamation mark in the first training session in Spielberg!

Spielberg, Österreich - On June 27, 2025, the first training session of the Grand Prix weekend took place at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. George Russell from Mercedes took the lead with a time of 1: 05.542 and turned out to be the fastest driver of the day. Max Verstappen, the current world champion and pilot from Red Bull, followed a deficit of only 0.065 seconds and secured second place, while Oscar Piatri from McLaren and the leading driver in the World Cup ranking, also performed strongly with 0.155 seconds.

Alexander Dunne, who replaces Lando Norris, drove to fourth place, while Pierre Gasly from Alpine finished fifth. Among the top ten, Gabriel Bortoleto from Sauber, Alexander Albon (Williams), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) and Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) made it. However, the team Ferrari had to struggle with technical difficulties: Hamilton reported gear problems, and Leclerc's car was dismantled during the session.

new staff and technical challenges

A look at the driver's line -up shows that Fernando Alonso from Aston Martin made a shoot in the last curve during his outlap, which he humorously commented on the radio. Verstappen was looked after by Simon Rennie this weekend, his regular racing engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was missing for private reasons.

In another message, it was announced that Red Bull Racing promoted Yuki Tsunoda as a new teammate for Max Verstappen in front of the home race in Japan. Liam Lawson, who was previously in the cockpit, has to vacate his place and will drive again for the sister team Racing Bulls. Team boss Christian Horner explained that the change was purely sporty in nature to improve the performance of the non -convincing RB21. Lawson had stayed without a point in the first races of the season.

A look at the current statistics

In order to clarify the context of the current driver's situation, it is worth noting that Max Verstappen scored the most points in one season, with a total of 575 points in 2023. This outstanding performance is one of the remarkable records in the Formula 1 story Wikipedia. Its dominance also runs through statistics like most victories in a row (10 in 2023) and most of the leadership rounds in one season (1003).

With a mix of new challenges and exciting race results, Formula 1 expects an exciting weekend in Spielberg, in which the teams will implement their developments and strategies.