Mercedes George Russell, the man without a contract, is fastest in Practice at Austria

George Russell will need to fight tooth and nail for the second half of the season to hopefully get his bosses signature on his contract for next year. 

Russell was the fastest through the first free practice session at Spielberg on Friday ahead of Round 11’s Austrian Grand Prix. Russell ran the fastest lap of the session with his 1:05:542 second lap at the Red Bull Ring, ahead of Max Verstappen.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri finished the session in P3 with the most impressive driver of the day behind him - Formula 2’s Alex Dunne. Dunne drove in place of Lando Norris for McLaren as part of regulations which dictate that a F2 driver take the seat during practice. 

Verstappen was just shy of Russell’s pace - who is definitely looking to secure a consecutive win in Austria and prove to Toto Wolff that he deserves the coveted main seat of Mercedes for another season. 

“It's not something that I'm pressing massively because, as I've always said, the performance is the priority, and I feel with the performance I'm showing at the moment – still in line with the performance I've shown over all these years – I've got zero reasons to be worried. But obviously it does help if there was pen on paper,” the British driver said during the Austrian GP media day. 

Russell is coming off a wave of momentum following his win in Canada during the last round - where teammate Kimi Antonelli claimed P3 to cap off an almost perfect weekend for Wolff’s men. 

“A few small raindrops,” Russell reported as the last 10 minutes of the FP1 session approached. Spielberg saw some light rainfall on Thursday and Friday, with rain expected into the weekend as well. 

Russell and the rest of the paddock have a couple hours to assess the data and head back onto the track for Friday’s second free practice.