Max Verstappen put Red Bull Racing on top for first practice at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Dutchman used the soft tire in the second half of the session to set the benchmark at 1m37.378s, usurping Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas by 0.034s.

Renault’s Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon in the second Red Bull Racing car were more than 1.1s off the pace in third and fourth.

Lewis Hamilton, returning to the paddock after missing last weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix with COVID-19, was fifth fastest and 1.3s adrift after missing much of the first half of the session with a brake master cylinder problem.

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Sergio Perez’s popular Sakhir victory only piled more pressure onto Red Bull Racing and the under-fire Alex Albon switch drivers in 2021.

Max Verstappen usurped Mercedes’s Friday practice control to take a slender advantage into qualifying for the Sakhir Grand Prix.

The Dutchman set his best time of 54.064s on his first flying lap on soft tires for the evening, having run on the hard compound until late in the session. It put the Red Bull Racing driver 0.206s ahead of Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas, though the Finn surrendered at least a tenth of a second running wide past the curbs at the final corner of his best lap.

The two most likely rivals for victory this weekend were streets ahead of their teammates. Alex Albon in the second Red Bull Racing car was sixth and 0.565s off the pace, while George Russell — having topped both Friday practice sessions — slipped to seventh and 0.6s adrift in his Mercedes.

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Max Verstappen led the FP3 time sheet after a quiet final hour of practice ahead of qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Dutchman broke Lewis Hamilton’s Friday practice streak with a time of 1m28.355s, the fastest lap of the weekend so far. He did so despite his Red Bull RB16 appearing to suffer from rear wing instability while using DRS, a problem his mechanics will seek to rectify in the two-hour break before qualifying.

Notwithstanding the problem, Verstappen’s time was enough to beat Hamilton to top spot by 0.263s.

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Max Verstappen completed a practice clean sweep at the Turkish Grand Prix in a soaking wet FP3 in Istanbul.

The Red Bull Racing driver’s best effort was a 1m48.48s, enough to be 0.945s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and 1.5s ahead of teammate Alex Albon, but times meant little at the end of the barely representative hour of running that featured precious few flying laps.

Drizzle had set in at Istanbul Park 40 minutes before the start of final practice and intensified as the session progressed, turning conditions treacherous.

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Max Verstappen consolidated his place at the top of the time sheet in a greasy afternoon practice session at the Turkish Grand Prix.

The Dutchman topped FP1 earlier in the day when the freshly laid tarmac was treacherously slippery, but with more rubber laid into the Istanbul Park circuit he was able to lower the bar to a more representative 1m28.330s.

He was 0.4s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and almost 0.6s quicker than Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas, the last title challenger still in contention to overhaul championship leader Lewis Hamilton, who was a further 0.3s adrift in fourth.

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Max Verstappen was quickest in Formula 1’s return to Turkey in a shockingly slippery first practice at Istanbul Park.

The Dutchman took his Red Bull Racing car to the top of the time sheet in the final minutes of the morning session, his 1m35.077s a quarter of a second faster than teammate Alex Albon and 0.4s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Lewis Hamilton, aiming to seal his seventh title this weekend, finished in 15th after completing only three laps, while his only title challenger, teammate Valtteri Bottas, finished ninth with four tours.

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Thailand’s Alex Albon has little more than a week to convinced Red Bull Racing to keep him in his race-winning seat or potentially face the F1 wilderness.

Honda’s departure from top-level motorsport has left Red Bull Racing in need of an engine and Formula One in an existential crisis.

Thailand’s Alex Albon at long last stepped onto a Formula One podium at Mugello, but will it be enough to keep him in his plum Red Bull Racing seat?

When Alex Albon opened his microphone after crossing the finish line third at the Tuscan Grand Prix he showed none of the exhilaration you might have expected from a racer at their first podium.

“Thank you, everyone; thanks for everything,” he radioed. “Thanks for sticking with me.”

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen set the fastest time of Friday practice at the Belgian Grand Prix while Ferrari-powered cars continued to struggle at the back of the field.

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“I didn’t see it coming!” a gleeful Max Verstappen said after winning the Formula One 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone. And he wasn’t the only one.

Mercedes had been utterly dominant in qualifying on the previous day, having locked out the front row by almost a full second. On Saturday night another one-two finish seemed a certainty.

But unbeknownst to the paddock, the German marque was harbouring a critical weakness.

Mercedes’s tyres and Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari relationship engage in a race to see which can dissolve faster. Lawrence Stroll kidnaps himself.

I review the action from the 2020 70th Anniversary Grand Prix with Jack Nicholls from BBC F1.

Max Verstappen has broken Mercedes hearts with a perfectly judged strategy at a sizzling Silverstone to snatch his first win of the season.

Verstappen qualified fourth on the grid behind an all-Mercedes front row, but poleman Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton’s races came undone when their Mercedes car struggled to keep its tyres alive in the heat.

All three got good starts — Verstappen scythed past Racing Point’s Nico Hulkenberg to take third on the first lap — but Mercedes immediately fell into a rhythm of tyre management to make sure the medium-compound rubber both drivers started on would make it to the first pit stop window.

Verstappen had no such troubles, starting on the hard after an astute qualifying gamble. He was free to close in on the two leaders unimpeded while both Bottas and Hamilton complained of severe blistering.

By lap 14 — barely one-quarter distance — both Mercedes cars had switched onto the hard, but while they had a momentary boost in grip, before long the more durable rubber too started to expire on their rims.

Verstappen, having inherited the lead, was suddenly able to build an advantage over the stricken black cars, and Red Bull Racing smelt opportunity.

Waiting until lap 26 to make his first stop, he raced with Bottas for the lead as he exited pit lane and dispatched the Finn. He matched the times of the Mercedes cars behind, and when he and Bottas stopped on lap 32 and rejoined the race in the same order, Verstappen was able to gallop away and secure victory.

“I didn’t see it coming!” Verstappen said. “An incredible result to win here.

“We had a lot of pace in the car. We didn’t really have a lot of tyre issues at all we just kept pushing.

“Everything worked out well — we had the right strategy, everything was running smooth.”

The victory took Verstappen up to second in the drivers championship, 30 points behind title leader Hamilton.

Hamilton had been left in first place after Verstappen’s final stop, but his tyres were badly damaged. After considering and dismissing an unlikely defence of the lead without another set of tyres, he dived into pit lane for fresh rubber on lap 40.

But catching Verstappen was never going to happen, with 12 seconds to make up in as many laps. Instead Hamilton’s final stop allowed him to fight with teammate Bottas for second.

The Finn was at a nine-lap tyre disadvantage and could offer little defence, the Briton cutting past him with two laps to spare to consolidate second place.

“It was a massive challenge,” he said. “Definitely unexpected to have the blistering as hardcore as we experienced it, but I’m really grateful to have progressed and manage my way through the race.

“I’m sure the team will be working as hard as its can because we’ve not had that before.”

It left Bottas to trail home a disconsolate third, now third in the title standings and 34 points behind his teammate. … Continue reading

Max Verstappen pushed Mercedes to its limits in the heat of Silverstone to clinch victory in the F1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

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Max Verstappen topped Friday afternoon practice for the Styrian Grand Prix in a tightly contested three-way battle between Red Bull Racing, Mercedes and Racing Point.

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The Brazilian Grand Prix Strategy Report podcast features Fernando Campos from F1 podcast Dupla Aerodinâmica.