Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas led the way in F1 Portuguese GP FP1 from Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
It was a sunny weather in F1 Portuguese GP FP1 as Bottas led the way in his Mercedes car with a 1m19.648s lap, which was just 0.025s quicker than Red Bull’s Verstappen (1m19.673s). In third was his teammate Perez (1m19.846ss) after a late improvement.
It pushed Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (1m19.967s) to fifth, who pushed for quick laps towards the end but the second sector didn’t work in his favour. In fact, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc (1m19.884s) leapfrogged him to be fourth in the dying stages.
Leclerc had a slight off early in the session, but came back well, to end up inside the Top 5, with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly (1m20.444s) in sixth ahead of Williams’ George Russell (1m20.529s), who did a solid job to be seventh.
A late push from McLaren’s Lando Norris (1m20.635s) helped him to finish eighth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz (1m20.680s), whose fast lap was compromised by an off in the final sector, as Alpine’s Esteban Ocon (1m20.800s) rounded out the Top 10.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll dropped out of Top 10 after Norris’ lap, as he led the Brit’s teammate McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen in the Top 15.
Stroll’s teammate Sebastian Vettel was 16th. The German had a funny moment in the pitlane when he stopped in front of McLaren’s garage. He led Alfa Romeo’s Callum Ilott, who had a good FP1 run, as a replacement of Antonio Giovinazzi.
Haas’ Mick Schumacher slotted behind him in 18th, with teammate Nikita Mazepin 20th behind Williams’ Nicholas Latifi. There was a moment between the two Haas drivers on main straight due to miss-communication from the team side.
A good start to the weekend for @ValtteriBottas 👏
And nice work from @callum_ilott on his F1 track debut👍#PortugueseGP 🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/ZjmflTF0XM
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 30, 2021