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The first Portuguese Grand Prix weekend since 1996 started with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas fastest in FP1 ahead of his teammate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, when the drivers were able to test for the first time. Once the Portimao circuit.
With just over 20 of the 90 minutes remaining, both Mercedes drivers were in full swing and swapping places at the top of the standings on freshly fitted medium tires, easily cutting Hamilton’s benchmark time on 1m19 hard tires. .526s. But once again in a Friday session it was Bottas who had the last word, the fastest in all three sectors to finish with a better time of 1m18.410s, 0.339s faster than Hamilton.
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Verstappen held on to the hard tires but soared through qualifying later to take third place overall, 0.781s slower than Bottas. The Dutchman was one of many who circled on the new track surface, while his teammate Alex Albon was fifth, complaining of slow speed instability.
|
one Valtteri Bottas BOT Mercedes |
1: 18.410 |
|
two Luis Hamilton HAM Mercedes |
+ 0.339 s |
|
3 Max Verstappen WATCH Red bull racing |
+ 0.781 s |
|
4 Charles Leclerc LEC Ferrari |
+ 0.899 s |
|
5 Alexander Albon WHITE Red bull racing |
+ 0.955 s |
Among the Red Bulls was Charles Leclerc at P4, 0.899 seconds off the pace. Ferrari rolled out the third wave of their extensive upgrade package here and Leclerc seemed to enjoy the rejuvenated SF1000, though he was another driver to spin around in FP1. His teammate Sebastian Vettel could only take 11th place, but none of the Ferrari drivers chose means for their fastest laps.
In sixth place was McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, who was the third fastest driver to set his lap on medium tires. He was almost 0.5 seconds faster than his midfield rival Sergio Perez, who took seventh position for Racing Point, but it was Sainz who completed the most mileage with 42 laps from Portimao on Friday morning.
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When veteran Kimi Raikkonen reached eighth in the dying moments of Alfa Romeo, Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo finished in ninth, just over a tenth behind Pérez. His teammate, Esteban Ocon, used hard tires at all times and was 19th on a steady morning on Friday, but his session ended with a worrisome mechanical problem, when smoke was seen coming out of the back of his car just as the checkered flag.
Pierre Gasly also had a mechanical problem at the end of the session in his AlphaTauri, but achieved a stellar P10, ahead of Vettel.
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McLaren’s Lando Norris was just behind Vettel for the P12, while Daniil Kvyat spun with less than five minutes to go and finished 13th for AlphaTauri.
The two Haas drivers made headlines on Thursday as neither will be retained by the team for 2021. This morning it was Kevin Magnussen who finished fastest of the pair, at P14, while Romain Grojsean occupied P17, And Haas hasn’t named its 2021 yet. Get in line.
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Between Grosjean and Magnussen was Lance Stroll, who was ranked 15th, and seemed fully recovered from the effects of Covid-19, and Antonio Giovinazzi of Alfa Romeo, who commented on his future with the team on Thursday.
Williams completed qualifying with George Russell 18th and Nicholas Latifi 20th, the pair divided by Renault’s Ocon.
FP2 starts at 3:00 p.m. local time; stay tuned to F1.com for the latest news between Friday’s two sessions and beyond.
