#EmiliaRomagnaGP Practice Report: @LewisHamilton tops time-sheets. #F1 #ImolaGP

Lewis Hamilton set the benchmark in Formula One’s only practice session at the Emilia Romagna GP, ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.

With the sport’s revising the race weekend format to just two days at Imola, the drivers were given a sole 90-minute practice session to get their cars ready before qualifying coming up.

In the first official on-track running on the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit since 2006, it was Hamilton edging out Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

Verstappen set the early pace in practice on the harder rubber before Bottas was able to move ahead on the time-sheets on mediums.

Verstappen and Bottas continued to swap quickest efforts after changing to the red-marked soft tyres and completing their qualifying simulation runs, with the former setting the faster lap-time.

Hamilton initially split the two on the time-sheets, lapping almost two-tenths of a seconds slower than Verstappen, only to go quicker on his second flyer on C4 softs with a 1:24.726.

It was enough for the now 92-time Grand Prix winner to take P1 by 0.297 seconds from Verstappen, with Bottas 0.492 seconds adrift from Hamilton’s Emilia Romagna GP practice benchmark effort.

All three set their best times with 30 minutes left on the clock before switching their programmes to race simulations, as in Free Practice 2.

Solid runs on the C4 red side-walled soft tyres by Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly move up to fourth place in the closing stages of the session, leading the midfield runners and wound up 0.907 seconds off of Hamilton’s Emilia Romagna GP Practice benchmark time.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc made a late improvement to complete the top five despite reporting over the radio his SF1000 racer was “difficult to drive” after struggling with understeer.

The Renault pairing of Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon were sixth and seventh respectively, followed by Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat taking eighth.

Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon was ninth, and lapped over a second slower than his team-mate Verstappen after having several lap-times invalidated due to exceeding track limits.

Albon got caught out at Piratella and the exit of Variante Alta, making the Thai-Briton express his frustration about the stewards’ clampdown on track-limits.

Albon was not the only one to have lap-times as over 40 lap times were invalidated by race control during the session.

BWT Racing Point F1 Team duo Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez finished 10th and 11th with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel ending the sole practice session in 12th place.

Vettel focused most of his running on the C2 harder compound before making the late improvement on the softs to jump Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean who was relegated to 13th.

McLaren’s Carlos Sainz survived a scare through Rivazza in the early stages of the session that sent the Spaniard through the gravel and wound up 14th.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen ended practice in 15th and 17th respectively with McLaren’s Lando Norris splitting the pairing in 16th.

Williams Racing’s George Russell and Nicholas Latifi finished the session in 18th and at the rear with Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean in-between taking 19th.

You can see the full Formula 1 Emirates Emilia Romagna GP 2020 Practice Results Classification at the link: https://www.skysports.com/f1/grandprix/emilia-romagna/results

#F1 Newsbites – #EmiliaRomagnaGP Edition. #Formula1

#Formula1 Emirates Emilia Romagna GP 2020 Preview. #EmiliaRomagnaGP #F1