Portugal F1 Grand Prix training results: Bottas, Hamilton fastest

Both Friday exercises were shortened to one hour each in 2021, instead of the usual 90 minutes. FP1 was led by Bottas while teammate Lewis Hamilton was the fastest in FP2 – but his lap time was slower than the pace set in the morning session.

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What happened in Free Practice 1?

Bottas led the times from the start, setting a 1: 21.829 minute on his first run when the teams rated the hard tire. McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo stayed longer on the hard track and briefly took P1 place by 0.008 seconds.

Red Bull delayed his tough run and Verstappen set the fastest time of 1: 21.053 seconds after 20 minutes. Shortly before halfway through the session, Bottas took first place back with 1: 20.506 seconds, 0.339 seconds ahead of Verstappen and 0.447 seconds faster than Hamilton. Verstappen then went 0.006 seconds faster than Bottas and improved again by 0.182 seconds on a second hard run.

Mercedes switched to the Softs, Bottas initially striving to improve before producing 1: 20.221 seconds to recapture P1 on his second push lap. Bottas lowered this again with 1: 20.088 seconds, just under 20 minutes before the end, and then produced 1: 19.648 seconds.

Verstappen complained about vibrations during his run on soft tires, but still came up 0.025 seconds ahead of Bottas. Max then admitted defeat due to the imbalance and didn’t get the multiple runs on the softs that Valtteri enjoyed.

Sergio Perez was third fastest for Red Bull ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. In fifth, Hamilton finished the session 0.319 seconds behind his team-mate, but set the fastest time in the first sector. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) rounded off the top six.

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What happened in Free Practice 2?

The start of FP2 was delayed by 10 minutes due to the detection of a loose drain cover. When it finally started, the teams opted for the middle tire early on.

Verstappen suffered a brake-by-wire sensor failure after his first lap and was stranded in the pits when Bottas set the pace at 1: 20.423 minutes.

After a relatively quick fix, Verstappen was sent back on the track to drive on Medien in 1: 20.322 seconds before Bottas topped the top of the soft tire at 1: 20.181 seconds after 20 minutes. Hamilton then lit the timing screens on Softs with a new P1 time of 1: 19.837 seconds, 0.344 seconds ahead of Bottas.

Verstappen drove on his run with soft tires to 1: 19.980 minutes and 0.143 seconds ahead of Hamilton in second place.

Behind Bottas, who landed 0.344 seconds ahead of Hamilton, Sainz was fourth, 0.36 seconds ahead of the fastest time, followed by Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon in the Alps.

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