Bottas improves his lap record as Red Bull struggles

Valtteri Bottas improved his lap record set last week in Barcelona this morning with a 1:19.310. He leads from Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen who crashed in the afternoon.

Valtteri Bottas dominated once again the time sheets with a lap record of 1:19.310 established with super-soft tyres while his former record was established with ultra-soft tyres. The Finn covered 70 laps in the morning ahead of his former teammate Felipe Massa who also only ran in the morning.

Kimi Raikkonen had to settle for a third place with a best time set in the morning. The Finn ended his session prematurely with a crash around 4pm. Max Verstappen was the only driver to get over the +100 laps benchmark although Red Bull had to switch of power unit and he had to stop on track by the end of the session after running out of fuel.

After difficult F1 debuts, Lance Stroll found out some pace by setting the fifth best lap of the day ahead of Lewis Hamilton, both drivers who only ran during the afternoon. Nico Hulkenberg seemed again to avoid technical problems and set the seventh best time.

Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz Jr and Romain Grosjean all went through calm days and completed the top 10. Pascal Wehrlein again dominated his teammate with only one complete day of running.

McLaren’s problem did not seem to improve as Fernando Alonso only covered 46 laps with long periods in the garage and a twelfth time overall. Marcus Ericsson had a more complicated day than Wehrlein and even had to stop in the middle of the track, putting an end to the session. Jolyon Palmer again faces problems with the Renault and ended last.