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Lewis hamilton and the Mercedes he won the first and only free practice of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola with relative ease, with his biggest opponent not as his teammate Valtteri Bottas but as Max Verstappen.
Everyone immediately took to the track, most of the field chose hard tires for race simulations, and heavy traffic soon formed a battle with Hamilton, Vettel, Grosjean, and then did not give up his position against the French Stroll.
It soon became clear that despite seeing the tracks in just 2 laps, more than 15 laps were canceled in the first 10 minutes.
The drivers immediately started looking for the car’s limits and stopping distances as well, first Valtteri Bottas braked his left front at Tamburello and then Daniil Kvja, who also couldn’t avoid the gravel bed, bringing a lot of debris onto the track.
Verstappen was by far the fastest in the first 20 minutes, giving Gasly the second 1 second, while his teammate Albon has complained again for many years this year about a lack of rear grip.
The only free practice format soon showed an interesting feat: Hamilton wanted to do more laps in the mediocre, but Mercedes ordered the champion to pit because they said they were still behind with their testing schedule.
After the first few laps on medium and soft tires it was soon clear again that perhaps Verstappen had a chance to get close to the Mercedes, but it was interesting to see that there wasn’t much difference between the medium and soft mix.
Esteban Ocon had a slightly incomprehensible defect, also, not on the field but in the pits. The French driver went through the McLaren box where he broke the boards, but more importantly, he almost hit a cameraman.
Nicholas Latifin didn’t have a good day either, 40 minutes after the start of practice, the electric brake assist spiked in his car. This is not the first time this has happened at Williams, Russell has had a similar problem. Fortunately for the Canadian, though, it was probably just a software bug and he could be back on the field soon.
Half an hour before practice, Hamilton actually put together the measured lap for the first time and immediately gave 3 tenths of Verstappen on the same tires, Horner told Sky live that yes, the engine was now stopped by Mercedes, we expected it, but we are encouraging that we are close to them.
Leclerc complained about the car’s drivability during free practice, while Vettel ran racing simulations almost every time. McLaren also focused on the long stages as they again brought improvements, so they spent most of their training understanding them.
At the end of training, Leclerc still had a lot to improve, finishing FP1 in fifth place, while the McLarens’ pace is still a big question mark, as they are far from the top10.
What can be frustrating for Bottas after the Portuguese race crash, which is incomprehensible to him, is that Hamilton’s laps in the race simulation were again almost 6 tenths faster on average per lap, which will be very difficult to work just by changing the settings.
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