Vettel's Ferrari sets pace in FP2 in Austria

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel set the pace on Friday’s FP2 and while he later stopped with a gearbox issue, it is an interesting performance heading in to this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.

Is there a case to be made about the short length of the Spielberg Circuit and potential for Vettel to challenge Mercedes? Could strategy and a short track play into the hands of Ferrari or even Williams?

Rosberg and the Mercedes team are wary of Ferrari’s pace and the Italian team made a power unit upgrade two weeks ago that, for reasons not entirely in their control, didn’t get a chance to show its true pace.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m09.600s	–	28
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m09.611s	0.011s	50
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m09.860s	0.260s	41
4	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Mercedes	1m09.914s	0.314s	44
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m10.137s	0.537s	49
6	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m10.160s	0.560s	49
7	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Mercedes	1m10.267s	0.667s	38
8	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m10.356s	0.756s	48
9	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1m10.495s	0.895s	39
10	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m10.585s	0.985s	46
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m10.631s	1.031s	50
12	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/Renault	1m10.686s	1.086s	48
13	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m10.744s	1.144s	40
14	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m10.746s	1.146s	34
15	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m11.011s	1.411s	42
16	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1m11.517s	1.917s	17
17	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m11.676s	2.076s	38
18	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1m11.919s	2.319s	17
19	Will Stevens	Marussia/Ferrari	1m12.522s	2.922s	34
20	Roberto Merhi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m13.094s	3.494s	34