@RedBullRacing’s @Max33Verstappen tops #BahrainGP FP1 session. #F1

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen has topped the opening FP1 session at the Bahrain GP, posting his best effort near the end of proceedings, beating Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas by 0.298 seconds.

Verstappen’s quick time of a 1:31.294 was 2.334 seconds slower than the 1:28.960 that he set in pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit earlier this month, but that was set in much cooler conditions than the cars were running in the Friday afternoon sun.

Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso lead the field out of pit-lane at the beginning of the one hour Free Practice One session, with both Friday practice sessions reduced by 30 minutes each.

Alonso posted the first flying lap of the 2021 season with a 1:37.354 on the C2 harder compounds, but the Spaniard was quickly shuffled down by Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon and then McLaren Racing pairing Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris, who brought the P1 benchmark down to a 1:33.361 – also on the white side-walled tyres.

With a possible early indicator of all ten outfits adapting their Friday practice programmes with less time available this campaign, World Champions Mercedes and Red Bull sent their respective drivers out on the softer rubber before the opening ten minutes had passed.

Sergio Perez claimed P1 with a 1:33.180 on the softs in his new Honda-powered RB16B after seven minutes were in the books, before Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton used the red-marked softs to snatch top spot with a 1:32.884 on a hot lap, which looked much more stable than the F1 W12 was displaying during pre-season testing.

Bottas went quickest on his first soft compound stint setting a 1:32.707 before he was trumped by Red Bull’s Verstappen on his initial flyer with a 1:32.214.

A string of best efforts in the opening 20 minutes ended at this stage as the teams returned to the pits to make setup adjustments or undertake higher fuel runs.

McLaren’s Norris began the runs of improvement at the end of FP1 with a 1:31.897, on his initial soft tyre run, whilst new team-mate Ricciardo followed suit a few minutes later, but encountered traffic on his flyer and ended up a few tenths adrift of the Briton.

After Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly had squeezed in-between the two McLarens posting a 1:31.993 and 1:32.195 respectively, the Mercedes and Red Bull pairings went for their final soft tyre flying laps in opening practice.

Hamilton was quickest of anyone in sector one with less than 10 minutes remaining but lost time as the lap went on, fighting his F1 W12 racer at the final corner, and wound up under 0.1 seconds adrift of Norris.

But Bottas was able to maintain his speed over his tour and reclaimed the top of the time-sheets with a 1:31.692, before the Dutchman relegated the Mercedes driver.

Verstappen’s best and final efforts included fastest times in both the first and second sectors before a little wobble at the last corner, which costed him a clean sweep of purple on his 1:31.294 flyer.

Norris completed the top three, ahead of Hamilton, Leclerc and Perez – who held the quickest time in the third sector until the end of opening practice.

Gasly finished FP1 in seventh place and in-front of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who was eighth and Ricciardo’s McLaren who took ninth, whilst Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi rounded out the top ten and was ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen who wound up 11th.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel ruined a set of softs after suffering a heavy lock-up at the double-left apex of turns nine and ten at the mid-point of the session, as the German started his new adventure with the Silverstone-based squad taking 12th place, in-front of team-mate Lance Stroll who ended FP1 13th.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda completed his debut session in Formula 1 in 14th place and ahead of Alpine pairing Ocon and Alonso who wound up 15th and 16th respectively.

The Williams Racing pairing George Russell and Nicholas Latifi were 17th and 18th respectively, and in-front of Uralkali Haas F1 Team duo Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin who brought up the rear.

You can see the full Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1064/bahrain/practice-1.html

#F1 Gulf Air #BahrainGP and 2021 Season Preview. #Formula1