F1 | Portuguese GP | First Free Practice ends with Bottas ahead of Verstappen and Perez
The first session of Free Practices in Portimao finishes with a Mercedes and two Red Bulls
The first session of Free Practices in Portimao is over and once again, the top three are a Mercedes and two Red Bulls.
A good start to the weekend for @ValtteriBottas 👏
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 30, 2021
And nice work from @callum_ilott on his F1 track debut👍#PortugueseGP 🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/ZjmflTF0XM
The Mercedes who runs the session is thr “wrong” one: Valtteri Bottas signed a wonderful time of 1:19.648, followed up by Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, who is second for only 0″025.
In third position, there is another Red Bull, Sergio Perez’ s. The Mexican is third after +0.198 4 seconds from the Finn. Ferrari can be completely satisfied of today’s results, which seem to confirm that the Prancing Horse flies over this track. Charles Leclerc is fourth with a super time and ahead of Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes. The Briton could have suffered for the lack of grid on the track just like it happened during last year’s. In sixth position we find the AlphaTauri driven by Pierre Gasly and behind him, in seventh place there is George Russell on his Williams.
Lando Norris grabbed a quite satisfying eight placement, a clear sign that McLaren is continuing to confirm its growth. A similar opinion is given by Ferrari, who has Carlos Sainz that made it to the ninth position. The last driver to occupy the top ten of the first drive of this year in Portimao has been Esteban Ocon on his Alpine.
The surprise of this session has been admiring Callum Ilott in Formula 1, for the first time he is driving for Alfa Romeo. The 22-year-old Briton drove pretty well and ended in 17th position, behind his much more experienced teammate Kimi Raikkonen ( who ended in 15th position and was 0.4s quicker) and Sebastian Vettel, 16th.
This is only the first act, let’s wait for the second session that will take place in a couple of hours.
