Lewis Hamilton posted the fastest time in the first practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix on Friday, a few hours after teams voted against a mid-season switch of tires to break Mercedes' dominance.
The championship leader led Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel by 0.144 seconds, with Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas 0.161 slower in third.
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Red Bull rival Max Verstappen, who won the race last season, were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain gets into his car cockpit during the first free practice session for the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring racetrack in Spielberg, southern Austria, Friday, June 28, 2019. The race will be held on Sunday. (AP PhotoRonald Zak)
Practice was cut short after Niko Hulkenberg lost the left front wing of his Renault on the curb. Many racers, including Hamilton, damaged their front wing on the high edges of the track, called "yellow sausages" by many.
A second practice session is scheduled for later Friday.
While the opening practice showed Mercedes' unbeaten streak might continue this weekend, an attempt from various teams to create a more level playing field failed earlier in the day.
Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany is handed the car's steering wheel in the team box during the first free practice session for the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring racetrack in Spielberg, southern Austria, Friday, June 28, 2019. The race will be held on Sunday. (AP PhotoRonald Zak)
At the center of the discussion was the new type of tires introduced by supplier Pirelli this season. They have a reduced tread gauge which should cut down on blistering.
While most teams have found them unpredictable and have struggled to adapt to them, the new tires seem to perfectly fit the strategy of Mercedes, which has won all eight races this season, including six 1-2 finishes.
To open up the battle for victories and make the races more appealing again, various teams, led by Red Bull, have been suggesting a mid-season return to last year's rubber.
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, in the foreground, sits in his car as mechanics work on the car of teammate Valtteri Bottas of Finland, in the background, during the first free practice session for the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring racetrack in Spielberg, southern Austria, Friday, June 28, 2019. The race will be held on Sunday. (AP PhotoRonald Zak)
"Many teams have problems as we don't find the right window to work with the tires," Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said. "If we would go back to tires similar to ones of 2018 you would see a better fight."
But in a meeting with all team principals, Pirelli and governing body FIA, the proposal failed to get the mandatory support of at least seven of the 10 teams. Apart from Mercedes, the idea was also rejected by Williams, Racing Point, McLaren and Renault.
One of the reasons for the dismissal was the lack of data, as teams could only guess how the 2018 tires would work under the 2019 cars.
Hamilton initially had been critical of the new tires during pre-season testing, but has meanwhile slammed the idea of switching back to the old ones.
"Last year you had to manage the tires to a temperature, which means you had to do more lifting and coasting," said the five-time world champion, who attended Friday's meeting. "It was a lot worse. You couldn't do, for example, what I was able to do in the last race in Montreal, where I pushed behind Seb (Vettel). You can't do that on last year's tires."
After last week's triumph at the French GP, Hamilton showed sympathy for fans calling the races boring with a team as dominant as Mercedes. But he doesn't see a short-term change of tires as a solution.
"That's an example again of different teams pushing for different things for their own personal goals rather than for the sport's," Hamilton said.
Tire management will become a key factor during Sunday's high-altitude race on a hot day in the Austrian Alps.
Mercedes has won four of the five Austrian GPs since the event's return to the F1 calendar in 2014, but Hamilton added only one of these triumphs, in 2016.
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ISTANBUL (AP) — More than 40 people remained stranded in cable cars high above a mountain in southern Turkey on Saturday, 19 hours after one pod hit a pole and burst open, killing one person and injuring seven.
The accident occurred around 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Tunektepe cable car just outside the Mediterranean city of Antalya during the busy Eid al-Fitr holiday. Operations to rescue the stranded people continued throughout the night.
“128 citizens in 16 pods have been rescued under difficult conditions,” Okay Memis, director of the Turkish search and rescue agency AFAD, told media Saturday morning. “The rescue of 43 others in eight remaining pods is ongoing.”
He added that rescuers hope to complete rescue operations before dark.
The casualties occurred when a pod hit a pole and burst open, sending its passengers plummeting to the mountainside below, officials said.
State-run Anadolu Agency identified the deceased as a 54-year-old Turkish man. The injured were six Turkish citizens and one Kyrgyz national, including two children. They were rescued by Coast Guard helicopters.
Images in Turkish media showed the battered car swaying from dislodged cables on the side of the rocky mountain as medics tended the wounded.
A total of 543 first responders and seven helicopters are involved in the rescue operations, including teams from AFAD, the Coast Guard, firefighting teams and mountaineering teams from different parts of Turkey, officials said.
Friday was the final day of a three-day public holiday in Turkey marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which sees families flock to coastal resorts.
The cable car carries tourists from Konyaalti beach to a restaurant and viewing platform at the summit of the 618-meter (2,010-foot) Tunektepe peak. It is run by Antalya Metropolitan Municipality. The cable car line was completed in 2017 and receives a major inspection around the beginning of the year, as well as routine inspections throughout the year.
Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation. An expert commission including mechanical and electrical engineers and health and safety experts was assigned to determine the cause of the incident.
Rescue and emergency team members work with passengers of a cable car transportation system outside Antalya, southern Turkey, Friday, April 12, 2024. At least one person was killed and several injured Friday when a cable car pod in southern Turkey hit a pole and burst open, sending the passengers plummeting to the mountainside below, officials and local media said. Scores of other people were left stranded late into the night after the entire cable car system came to a standstill. (Dia Images via AP)
Rescue and emergency team members work with passengers of a cable car transportation system outside Antalya, southern Turkey, Friday, April 12, 2024. At least one person was killed and several injured Friday when a cable car pod in southern Turkey hit a pole and burst open, sending the passengers plummeting to the mountainside below, officials and local media said. Scores of other people were left stranded late into the night after the entire cable car system came to a standstill. (Dia Images via AP)
Rescue and emergency team members work with passengers of a cable car transportation system outside Antalya, southern Turkey, Friday, April 12, 2024. At least one person was killed and several injured Friday when a cable car pod in southern Turkey hit a pole and burst open, sending the passengers plummeting to the mountainside below, officials and local media said. Scores of other people were left stranded late into the night after the entire cable car system came to a standstill. (Dia Images via AP)
A rescue team work with passengers of a cable car transportation systems outside Antalya, southern Turkey, April, Friday 12, 2024. A cable car disaster in southern Turkey left one person dead and seven injured over the busy Eid al-Fitr public holiday on Friday, local media reported. (IHA via AP)
A severely damaged cabin of a cable car transportation system is seen outside Antalya, southern Turkey, Friday, April 12, 2024. At least one person was killed and several injured Friday when a cable car pod in southern Turkey hit a pole and burst open, sending the passengers plummeting to the mountainside below, officials and local media said. Scores of other people were left stranded late into the night after the entire cable car system came to a standstill. (Dia Images via AP)
Rescue and emergency team members work with passengers of a cable car transportation system outside Antalya, southern Turkey, Friday, April 12, 2024. At least one person was killed and several injured Friday when a cable car pod in southern Turkey hit a pole and burst open, sending the passengers plummeting to the mountainside below, officials and local media said. Scores of other people were left stranded late into the night after the entire cable car system came to a standstill. (Dia Images via AP)
