Valtteri Bottas made a clean sweep of the three practice sessions at Autodromo do Algarve, narrowly leading a Mercedes one-two to final practice
Bottas led the session under three hundredths of a second ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton, who fled into the gravel at one point Behind them a trio of Honda racers completed a tight top five
Max Verstappen, who clocked his best lap time on medium tires instead of soft tires, finished the session two tenths of a second behind Bottas He was separated from his teammate Alexander Albon by Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri
Gasly, whose Friday race was severely disrupted by car issues including a fire, was in great shape after changing chassis overnight “Really good job guys,” he said after the first race in his repaired car, which his engineers had broken the curfew on to work on. Despite this, and because he didn’t have to take any new PSU parts, Gasly avoided any grid penalties.
Charles Leclerc made another lap en route to a possible sixth place His teammate Sebastian Vettel, who ran over the drain and caused the set-off that ended the session, finished 11th
The two Ferraris were separated by McLaren pair, Racing Point of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon – who had to pull over at the pit lane exit when the session was red flagged Him and his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo were both delayed by minor technical issues during the session
The track boundary guidance was changed overnight for turns one, four and 15, but that did not prevent many drivers from having their lap times deleted for running too far
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Interestingly, Ham copied Bottas setup (his fp2 setup was wrong) and had the best lap on his first real lap It took a long time for the rest to get past that Ver did the fastest lap on average, before losing time because of the limits of the track The differences between the teams are the smallest this year We are therefore in a very interesting quali!
@ david-br Also possible that he has reverted to his FP1 configuration.It’s the absolute certainty with which the hypothesis is regularly relayed as fact in these comment sections that does not suit me
@riggerus Maybe, but why not use Bottas’ configuration if it was better? I don’t see a problem in teammates’ sharing setups (although they might not sometimes want to share when they’re ahead, keen to have an advantage) It’s a team and exploring different possibilities and the subsequent pooling of results makes sense as a team I have a problem with teams training drivers to drive like other teammates (where they brake, take turns, etc.)) because those are the differences I think we all want to see Different styles and skills Maintaining this difference also means that setups may tend to favor one rider (and his style) over another
It was a rather odd session with Verstappen equaling the Mercs, while being on a harder track (although that might not have been a disadvantage), Gasly very close to them as well and the corresponding Ferraris. at race pace the Mercs towards the end of the session Mercedes are expected to retire in qualifying with Verstappen just behind them, but who knows what the pecking order will be behind them ?! Alpha Tauri, Ferrari, Renault, Racing Point, McLaren ?! Any of them could lead the midfield
Didn’t see a lot of balls, harder tires are harder than you would expect for the track and what you usually see The surface is very cool very smooth, the graining is a big deal as the tire temperatures are low Teams are struggling to get the most out of the range Sets 1 stop however as long as the teams manage the graining the mileage is there Merc ran safely Friday without suspension active on the car, after checking the data they are running it for today, expect to see them fly away
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Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Portuguese Grand Prix, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
World news – CA – Bottas completes sweep Mercedes testing as Verstappen closes RaceFans
