Lewis Hamilton beat teammate Valtteri Bottas to the fastest time of qualifying at the Turkish Grand Prix, although a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change will promote the Finn to pole position for the race.
Max Verstappen will start alongside Bottas on the front row after finishing the afternoon third.
Mercedes’s superiority at Istanbul Park has been clear from first practice on Friday, and even the jeopardy of a sprinkling of rain at the start of qualifying did little to dampen Hamilton’s position as the favourite for the session.
Continue reading on RACERPierre Gasly mastered a soaking Istanbul track to top final practice at the Turkish Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen.
The Frenchman was among a group of drivers to set their flying laps on intermediate rubber with around 15 minutes remaining, and though Verstappen embarked on his final flyer with just 20 seconds left, the track drying all the time, he could get to within only 0.164s of Gasly’s benchmark.
Lewis Hamilton finished a lowly 18th after calling it a day with just five laps completed in the inclement weather, the Briton 3.189s adrift.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton ended Friday at the Turkish Grand Prix as the quickest driver while title rival Max Verstappen struggled for pace.
Hamilton bettered his fastest time from morning practice to lower the bar to 1m23.804s, beating the absolute track record for the Istanbul Park circuit by almost a second.
Completing Hamilton’s perfect day was his race-simulation performance, his Mercedes lapping the quickest of all with full tanks, which bodes well for his recovery from a 10-place grid penalty for an internal combustion engine change this weekend.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton has started the Turkish Grand Prix with the fastest time of first practice, but Mercedes confirmed the Briton will serve a grid penalty for a new engine part.
Formula 1 is enjoying substantially better conditions on its return to Istanbul, with warmer weather and a grippier track banishing memories of last year’s drizzly conditions and greasy surface.
The improvement in the circuit has been immediately obvious. Hamilton’s best lap of first practice, a 1m24.178s, was more than four seconds quicker than the fastest time set at any point this time last year.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton scored his 100th grand prix victory in a dramatic late-race deluge at the Russian Grand Prix to retake the championship lead from second-placed Max Verstappen.
The Briton had been engaged in a battle for the lead with polesitter Lando Norris in the late stages when rain suddenly arrived in Sochi, sprinkling the track with rain and then drenching the circuit in a downpour that turned the race on its head.
He and Norris both resisted switching to the intermediate tire with so few laps left to run, with Hamilton even ignoring a call from his pit wall to box on lap 48 before finally accepting the summons on the following lap, leaving the McLaren in the lead in deteriorating conditions.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas consolidated his position as the fastest man in Sochi after sweeping Friday practice at the Russian Grand Prix. The Finn again had the measure of teammate Lewis Hamilton in a comfortable Mercedes one-two result, although the pair was more closely matched than in FP1, with Bottas leading the way by just 0.044s.
Hamilton was fastest in the first sector, but he slipped more than 0.3s to Bottas at the middle split, which he couldn’t recover in the final part of the lap. The Briton then had a strange collision with his front jackman, arriving too hot in his pit box and knocking him over. He later explained that he’d accidentally left on the “brake magic” brake bias setting.
In the unlikely but nonetheless contemplated event FP3 and qualifying cannot be run this weekend, with heavy rain forecast for Saturday, the results of second practice will set the grid for Sunday’s race, earning Bottas pole position.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas led the way in first practice for Mercedes at the Russian Grand Prix ahead of title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. The Finn, fresh from his strong performance at the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, went fastest with a time of 1m34.427s, beating teammate Hamilton by 0.211s.
Verstappen was third, just 0.016s further adrift, albeit with the championship leader using a second set of new soft tires late in the hour to set his best time, benefiting from rapidly improving conditions on the dusty street circuit. This flattered the Dutchman’s morning, and he ended the session with only 13 laps to his name and with his car on jacks in the garage.
It was an unusual example of a first practice session for the appearance of the red-walled rubber, which is usually held in its blankets for the more representative afternoon conditions. However, the high chance of rain on Saturday, including for qualifying, freed teams to use the fastest tire in what is ordinarily a session reserved for setup exploration, with every driver using at least one set each.
Continue reading on RACERDaniel Ricciardo won a thrilling Italian Grand Prix ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris after championship rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton came to blows again in a terrifying airborne crash.
The two title protagonists were kept separated in the first stint by Norris, who bottled Hamilton in fourth and split him from Verstappen’s fight with leader Ricciardo, but a slow stop by the Red Bull Racing mechanics conspired to drop the Dutchman off the lead battle.
Mercedes stopped Hamilton shortly afterwards, and his stop was also slow, dropping him onto the track alongside Verstappen as they entered the chicane, the Briton with the inside line and squeezing the Dutchman onto the apex at Turn 2.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas scored a light-to-flag victory in the season’s second Saturday sprint, but an engine penalty will promote second-placed Max Verstappen to pole for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Bottas’s 18-lap race was completely untroubled after a clean launch from the line, though the same couldn’t be said for teammate Lewis Hamilton. Starting from the second row, the Briton sunk to fifth behind Verstappen and both McLaren cars with a tardy start that left him crowded into the first chicane.
Pierre Gasly got caught up in the crush. The Frenchman zipped around the fading Hamilton’s outside at Rettifilo but in the process nudged the back of Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren, breaking his front wing. The AlphaTauri’s wing collapsed and dropped beneath Gasly’s car as he powered through Curva Grande, sending him careening through the gravel and into the wall, causing a two-lap safety car.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton topped the final practice at the Italian Grand Prix ahead of Saturday’s Sprint, but Carlos Sainz will be lucky to take part in the short race after a high-speed crash.
Sainz lost control of the rear of his Ferrari powering over the left-hand curb entering the Ascari chicane, punching his car into the barrier at speed. The front of his car was wiped off in the collision, and the Spaniard came to rest spun backwards shortly down the road.
“That hurt a bit, but I’m OK,” a winded Sainz radioed back to his pit wall as the session was suspended to clear the wreckage. He was cleared of injury by the medical center, though he will be examined a second time half an hour after the session.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri Bottas will start the Saturday sprint at the Italian Grand Prix from pole position after just edging teammate Lewis Hamilton in qualifying.
The Finn started Q3 with a scruffy initial lap, leaving him fifth and 0.4s off Hamilton’s pace after dipping a wheel on the gravel at the Roggia chicane, but his second attempt was clinical, setting two purple sectors a the first to splits to beat Hamilton by just 0.069s.
Bottas is equipped with a brand-new power unit this weekend after Mercedes made a tactical change to sure up his allocation to the end of the season, which means the Finn will serve the back-of-grid penalty for Sunday’s race, but not before he gets an opportunity to score three points for a sprint victory beforehand.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton set the quickest time in first practice at the Italian Grand Prix before qualifying later today for Saturday’s sprint. The Mercedes driver’s best time of 1m20.926s was 0.452s better than title rival Max Verstappen’s fastest time despite the Briton using the medium tire to the Dutchman’s softs.
Teammate Valtteri Bottas ended the practice hour third and another half-second behind Verstappen’s Red Bull, also on the medium compound.
Mercedes was the only team not to use at least two different compounds through the hour, with each of the Black Arrows burning through two sets of mediums across more than 26 laps.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen scored an emphatic victory at his home Dutch Grand Prix to retake the world championship lead from second-placed Lewis Hamilton.
The Dutchman’s triumph was never in doubt despite several Mercedes attempts to challenge his grasp on the lead at the pit stops. Hamilton attempted to keep up with the race’s blistering pace with an alternative tire strategy, but his rubber inevitably faded late, allowing the home hero to cruise to a comfortable win.
A perfect start was his foundation, getting away cleanly to control the racing line into the first turn. The second phase of Hamilton’s launch was slower, dropping him into the clutches of teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen snatched pole for the first Dutch Grand Prix in 36 years by less than a tenth of a second from title rival Lewis Hamilton in a tense qualifying finish at Zandvoort.
Verstappen looked comfortably in control atop the standings for the first two segments of qualifying and after the first laps of the pole shootout held a three-tenths margin over both Mercedes drivers. So good was the Dutchman’s lap that he could squeeze only 0.038s of improvement with his second attempt.
Hamilton, on the other hand, had left plenty on the table to gain with his second attempt, correcting several snaps of oversteer in the key traction zones to run Verstappen close.
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Max Verstappen made a claim to pole favorite for the Dutch Grand Prix with the fastest time of final practice at Zandvoort, comfortably ahead of both Mercedes drivers.
The Dutchman was quickest in every sector to set a time of 1m09.623s, gaining a little time thanks to a slipstream from teammate Sergio Perez out of the final banked corner.
Valtteri Bottas was next best, but the Finn was 0.556s adrift of Red Bull Racing’s benchmark, with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton a further 0.2s behind.
Continue reading on RACERFerrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz topped a twice-suspended second free practice session at the Dutch Grand Prix from which Lewis Hamilton withdrew early with engine problems.
Leclerc topped the time sheet with a lap of 1m10.902s, beating Sainz by 0.194s. Home favorite Max Verstappen was fifth, the Red Bull driver having lost his best time to one of the session’s two red flags.
Hamilton was the cause of the first, the championship leader having completed just three laps when his Mercedes’ power unit gave up the ghost. The Briton eased off the power through the first turn and cruised through to Turn 8, where he was instructed to park the car and switch off the motor.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton snatched top spot from home hero Max Verstappen by less than a tenth of a second in F1’s first timed session at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Briton set his best time, a 1m11.500s, late in the hour after most of the session was lost to a protracted stopped to recover Sebastian Vettel’s broken Aston Martin car.
Vettel had reported an MGU-K problem on his first foray around the track and promptly returned to pit lane for a check-up, but when he was deployed to the circuit little more than 10 minutes later his car lasted barely another lap before its Mercedes power unit failed on the start-finish straight, trailing fluid before griding to a halt at pit exit.
Continue reading on RACERThe 2021 Belgian Grand Prix has been abandoned and Max Verstappen declared the winner amid torrential rain at Spa-Francorchamps.
Half points were awarded to the drivers in qualifying order — less Sergio Perez, who dropped to last thanks to a crash on the reconnaissance lap — after two laps were completed behind the safety car to satisfy the regulations to produce a classification, short of the 75 percent required to award full points.
Rain had lashed Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps all day and intensified in the lead-up to the race. By the time pit lane opened grip was so low that Sergio Perez slid off the road at Les Combes and embedded himself in the barrier, leaving him unable to make it to the grid.
Continue reading on RACER