{"id":10970,"date":"2026-06-26T20:21:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/kimi-antonelli-tops-george-russell-in-austrian-grand-prix-first-practice\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T20:22:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:22:45","slug":"kimi-antonelli-tops-george-russell-in-austrian-grand-prix-first-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/kimi-antonelli-tops-george-russell-in-austrian-grand-prix-first-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli Tops George Russell in Austrian Grand Prix First Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kimi Antonelli secured the fastest time in the first practice session at the <a href=\"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/tag\/austrian-grand-prix\/\" data-ailt=\"1\">Austrian Grand Prix<\/a>, finishing just 0.04 seconds ahead of George Russell. Oscar Piastri of McLaren followed closely in third, 0.117 seconds off the pace.<\/p>\n<p>This performance marks a strong start for Antonelli, who currently leads the drivers&#039; championship by 41 points over <a href=\"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/tag\/lewis-hamilton\/\" data-ailt=\"1\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Max Verstappen, debuting a significant aerodynamic upgrade on his Red Bull, placed fourth, 0.281 seconds behind Antonelli. Lewis Hamilton, the recent winner in Spain, finished fifth, 0.665 seconds off the lead. During a brief radio transmission, Hamilton expressed dissatisfaction with his car&#039;s performance, indicating potential challenges for the team moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>Arvid Lindblad of Racing Bulls finished sixth, while Lando Norris, who faced a hydraulics issue that limited his track time, was seventh. Franco Colapinto of Alpine and Dino Beganovic in Charles Leclerc&#039;s Ferrari rounded out the top eight and ninth positions, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Oliver Bearman completed the top ten in his Haas, showcasing a competitive performance from the team.<\/p>\n<p>This weekend is crucial for Ferrari as they assess their competitiveness against Mercedes. The team has introduced an engine upgrade but has indicated that it may not be sufficient to close the power gap to Mercedes. The performance in this session will be closely analyzed as Ferrari aims to improve its standing in the championship.<\/p>\n<p>McLaren opted not to deploy a new rear wing designed to enhance performance, citing the need for further preparation. This wing is similar to those used by Ferrari and Red Bull, featuring a design that allows it to open in straight-line mode, which could potentially improve their speed on the track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kimi Antonelli led George Russell in the first practice session at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastri finishing third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[400,406,399,402,401,403,404,405],"class_list":["post-10970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-austrian-grand-prix","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-george-russell","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10979,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10970\/revisions\/10979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heibola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}