Lewis Hamilton turned the tables on Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas to end Friday practice on top of the time sheet, while their title rivals at Red Bull Racing failed to show competitive pace.
Hamilton trailed Bottas in morning practice but the Briton was best in the afternoon, setting a time of 1m18.170s to go 0.139s at the head of the field.
Neither Red Bull Racing driver was in the vicinity of the Mercedes teammates. Max Verstappen was 0.615s off the pace in ninth after abandoning his first flying lap on the soft tire when he ran wide at the new Turn 10, while poor first and third sectors left Sergio Perez 0.748 off the pace in 10th. Verstappen in particular seemed out of sorts, and the Dutchman damaged his wing for the second session in a row riding on the curbs through Turns 7 and 8.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas opened the Spanish Grand Prix weekend with the fastest time of first practice at the modified Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Finn’s best lap of 1m18.504s kept him ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen by just 0.033s, though the Dutchman was balked by Lance Stroll on his first flying lap on soft tires and had to make do with a second attempt. Verstappen also had a mid-session front wing change after picking up damage on the curbs through Turns 7 and 8.
Championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished third and 0.123s behind his session-topping teammate, the Briton also on the soft compound.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton won his second race of the season in commanding fashion to take an eight-point championship lead in arguably Mercedes’s most convincing weekend of the year.
Lewis Hamilton extended his title lead to eight points over Max Verstappen with a comfortable win at the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Hamilton dropped from second to third at the start of the race but clawed his way into the lead by Lap 20, and although his ultimate victory margin of 29.148s over second-placed Verstappen was exaggerated by a late pit stop for the Red Bull Racing driver, the world champion was unchallenged in the second half of the race.
Pole winner Valtteri Bottas led Mercedes teammate Hamilton and Verstappen cleanly off the line in qualifying order, but a safety car restart on Lap 7 — the race had been neutralized to collect Kimi Raikkonen’s broken front wing — allowed the Dutchman to slip past the Briton for second place around the outside of the first turn.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton made victory look easy at the Portuguese Grand Prix with a cruise to a half-minute victory over championship rival Max Verstappen, but the Briton had to work to stretch his championship lead.
Valtteri Bottas is the third different pole-getter of the season after besting Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to lock out the front row of the grid for the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas has taken his first pole of 2021 after Max Verstappen had a quicker time deleted for running off the track.
Verstappen was the first of the front-runners to set a time in the Portuguese Grand Prix pole shootout but had his time cancelled for running off the track at Turn 4 while collecting a moment of oversteer. The Red Bull driver lost time in the snap, but Turn 4 has been designated as a monitored corner for track limit violations, and the stewards were quick to erase his time.
Bottas was then clear to take top spot with a best time of 1m18.348s, and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton slot into second just 0.007s adrift.
Continue reading on RACERChampionship leader Lewis Hamilton led the way for Mercedes in Portimao after topping second practice at the Portuguese Grand Prix. The Briton overcame his morning discomfort with the Pirelli tires and cool ambient temperatures to unleash his soft-compound rubber for a best lap of 1m19.837s.
Title rival Max Verstappen, lagging in the championship table by a single point, was just 0.143s adrift for Red Bull Racing despite suffering a brake-by-wire issue in the first 10 minutes of the session that restricted him to the second fewest laps of any driver for the hour.
The Dutchman was running an upgraded floor in his team’s attempt to consolidate its place at the head of the field with Mercedes, and though he showed strongly, teammate Sergio Perez was less impressive in 10th and 0.679s off the pace.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas beat Max Verstappen to the top spot in first practice at the Portuguese Grand Prix.
The Finn, who is 28 points off the championship lead thanks to his retirement from the previous race in Imola, bolted on a set of soft tires onto his Mercedes in the second half of the session to rocket to the top of the time sheet.
Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen was next best with just a 0.025s deficit despite the Dutchman complaining of severe vibrations on his soft tires. He was offered the chance to return to the garage but chose instead to set a single flying lap before withdrawing from the run. “I’ll just visit the dentist after the weekend,” he replied before coming close to toppling Bottas from the head of the time sheet.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton squeaked to pole position by less than half a tenth ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The Briton took his 99th pole despite failing to improve his first banker lap with his second attempt, leaving him vulnerable to Max Verstappen, who then was trailing by only 0.091s.
But the Dutchman found only 0.004s on his own second attempt. Instead Perez was the biggest gainer, finding almost a quarter of a second to come within a minuscule 0.035s of Hamilton’s still-standing benchmark.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton has snatched his 99th F1 pole position from Sergio Perez in a nailbiting qualifying hour at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas completed a Friday clean sweep by topping second practice at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix after Max Verstappen retired from the session with a drive problem.
The Finn set his quickest time of 1m15.551s on the medium compound early in the session, and though he undertook a subsequent three-lap qualifying simulation with the grippiest soft tire, he was unable to improve.
He was followed closely by teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was able to fractionally improve on his medium-tire time with the softs, though only enough to close to within 0.01s.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton topped the time sheet for Mercedes in a crash-strewn first practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola.
Just 0.041s separated the teammates, with Max Verstappen just 0.017s further back in third, at the end of the one-hour session, which was disrupted by two red-flag suspensions to clean up three crashed cars.
The first came at the 38-minute mark when Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon came together entering the Villeneuve chicane.
Continue reading on RACERA close fight at the front of the Formula 1 field is great for everyone — except Valtteri Bottas.
Wheel-to-wheel racing, pit wall tactics and an unexpected winner — the Bahrain Grand Prix had it all, and it teased what’s shaping up to be a thrilling season of grand prix racing.
Lewis Hamilton held off Max Verstappen for victory by just 0.745s after a titanic duel at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Hamilton and Verstappen ran different strategies that saw the lead change three times in the pit lane, but brought the pair together for a wheel-to-wheel battle for the final six laps.
The Red Bull Racing car was sporting tires 10 laps fresher than the Mercedes, and Verstappen seemed sure to turn that pace advantage into the win that had seemed certain when he took pole by 0.4s on Saturday night.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton has snatched victory from polesitter Max Verstappen by less than a second in a classic Bahrain Grand Prix to open the Formula 1 season.
After seven years of F1 domination, has Mercedes finally unveiled a car with a beatable weakness?