Lewis Hamilton scored his 100th Formula 1 pole position with a fine-margins victory over Max Verstappen ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Hamilton needed only one lap in Q3 to claim his record-extending pole. His first time of 1m16.741s put him at the head of the grid and ahead of title rival Max Verstappen by just 0.036s, and neither he nor the Dutchman was able to improve with their second attempts.
The Briton paid tribute to Mercedes, with which he’s scored 74 of his pole ton of poles since joining the team from McLaren.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen will start what promises to be a hotly contested qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix as Barcelona’s fastest man after topping final practice ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen’s best time of 1m17.835s was built largely on a purple middle sector, after which he was almost half a second up on Hamilton, before a fumbled exit from the chicane brought his advantage back down to 0.235s.
Hamilton’s best lap also left time on the table, similarly through the chicane. The Briton should have gained with his final flying lap on the soft tire but took too much of the tall yellow curb to improve his time.
Continue reading on RACERLewis 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 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 RACERValtteri 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 RACERMax Verstappen led the way in Portugal ahead of qualifying after beating Lewis Hamilton to the top spot in final practice.
The Red Bull Racing driver overcame the cool and gusty conditions on the Algarve circuit to set the fastest lap of the hour-long session with barely five minutes remaining, his lap of 1m18.489s, just 0.236s quicker than the Mercedes immediately behind.
It took Verstappen several laps to hit his stride after his first flyer was disrupted by a virtual safety car to recover a stray advertising board let loose by the high winds, while his attempt on a new set of soft tires nearer the end of the hour was undone by excessive oversteer in the final sector. His final laps of the session were similarly marred by excursions just wide of the track, and the Dutchman complained of driveability over team radio.
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 RACERMax Verstappen won a manic wet race in Imola in which pole winner Lewis Hamilton recovered from a lap down to finish on the podium, while Valtteri Bottas and George Russell emerged unscathed from a high-speed crash at Tamburello.
The Dutchman was close to flawless in depriving Hamilton of the lead on the first lap and controlling the race thereafter, dominating the field to claim a comfortable 22-second victory.
Hamilton, on the other hand, lost touch with the lead through a rare clumsy mistake in the damp on slick tires, running through the gravel and plummeting down the order, but a trademark charge through the field in the second half of the race brought the Briton back up to a commendable second place.
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 RACERMax Verstappen reasserted Red Bull Racing’s qualifying credentials with a dominant one-lap display in Saturday morning practice for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Verstappen had several laps deleted for exceeding track limits before setting a flying lap on fresh soft tires late in the hour and logging an unbeatable time of 1m14.982s, almost half a second quicker than anyone else.
But the competitive picture ahead of qualifying remains uncertain, with Lewis Hamilton the quickest Mercedes in third and 0.557s off the pace, the front-running pair separated unexpectedly by McLaren’s Lando Norris after a late flier of his own.
Continue reading on RACERValtteri 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 RACERLewis 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 RACERMax Verstappen confirmed Red Bull Racing’s ascendancy with a comfortable pole position over Lewis Hamilton at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Dutchman held a slender 0.023s advantage over the Mercedes after the pair’s first laps of the top-10 shootout but radioed his team that he wasn’t happy with his lap, hinting at more pace to be squeezed from his RB16B. He duly delivered with a second blistering lap of 1m 28.997s, dismissing Hamilton by 0.388s.
It’s the first time Mercedes hasn’t taken the first pole position of the season since the 2013 Australian Grand Prix, also the scene of Red Bull Racing’s last season-opening pole.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen kept Red Bull Racing on top in the only night-time practice session at the Bahrain Grand Prix, while McLaren’s Lando Norris was his closest pursuer.
The Dutchman’s lap of 1m30.847s was enough to continue his control of the time sheet after also leading first practice in the heat of the late afternoon sun. Friday evening practice is the only session of the Bahrain Grand Prix representative of the after-dark qualifying and race conditions and is therefore considered a more accurate measure of relative performance.
Norris was the surprise next-quickest driver, only 0.095s adrift. His Mercedes-powered McLaren team suggested the Briton’s soft-shod lap was the car’s first performance run after eschewing low-fuel running during pre-season testing. Lewis Hamilton followed in third as the fastest Mercedes driver, but the Briton was 0.235s off Verstappen’s pace.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen opened the 2021 Formula 1 season with the fastest time of first practice for Red Bull Racing at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Dutchman rocketed to the top of the time sheet with a lap of 1m31.394s in the final five minutes of the session with a fresh set of soft tires.
The Honda-powered RB16B was 0.298s quicker than Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas, but the practice hour did little to clarify the competitive order between the two constructor giants.
Red Bull Racing and Mercedes spent the first half of the session rotating through top spot of the order, with Sergio Perez opening proceedings for his new team first before being usurped by Lewis Hamilton and in turn Bottas.
Continue reading on RACER