#RussianGP FP1 Report: @ValtteriBottas tops incident-filled session. #F1

Valtteri Bottas was quickest in FP1 at the Russian GP in an incident-filled session, with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton ending up 19th after a disrupted lap on the softest tyres.

Although the times at the top of the time-sheets changed little, the hour and a half-long opening practice saw several spins and crashes – with Williams Nicholas Latifi’s accident bringing out the red flags – as the drivers got familiar with the Sochi track.

The Mercedes-pairing took the first two spots in the early initial running as they opted to head out at the session’s start instead of waiting in the garages, with Hamilton setting the benchmark with a 1:37.313 before Bottas surpassed the Briton, going 0.403 seconds quicker.

After a ten minute lull, the field gradually hit the track to complete more runs on the C4 mediums and C3 hards – with Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo all briefly holding P1.

Just before the opening 30 minutes, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen went fastest on the yellow-branded mediums with a 1:36.751 on the mediums, as the Mercedes duo emerged on the softs.

Bottas used the C5 red-branded rubber to post the quickest time of a 1:34.923, which remained as the quickest of the session as the first of two major disruptions took place afterwards.

Hamilton was unable to post a time on the softs as McLaren’s Carlos Sainz lost the rear of his MCL35 racer after putting his left-side wheels on the outside kerbs approaching the turn seven left-hander and the Spaniard spun off, hitting the barriers backwards and destroying his rear wing.

Sainz slowly returned back to the pits, with Kvyat then spinning Honda-powered AT01 at the slow tight-left of turn 15 in the third sector, with the virtual safety car deployed.

Once the cars were able to run at full speed, the Mercedes pairing switched back to the harder rubber and both suffered off-track moments.

Hamilton had a brief lock-up but dramatically went into the race overtaking spot at the second corner during the halfway point of the session, quickly cutting through the run-off area and the Briton declared his tyres “done”, while a few minutes later team-mate Bottas locked-up and went deep into the turn 13 right-hander – where Sainz had his huge crash at the same event in 2015.

On the 53rd minute mark, Latifi lost the rear of his FW43 racer going through turn ten, the 90-degree right, which runs onto the circuit’s long speed zone heading towards turn 13, as the Canadian spun his Williams off backwards at high speed.

Unlike Sainz’s incident, Latifi’s car was stuck in the barriers, with the session stopped for nine minutes so the FW43 could be retrieved.

The teams opted for different approaches as the session resumed, with Red Bull’s Verstappen heading out on the softs to take second with 25 minutes remaining before five minutes later being disposed of by Ricciardo who wound up 0.507 seconds adrift of Bottas’ Russian GP FP1 benchmark, whilst Mercedes continued to gather data on the harder compounds.

Racing Point’s Perez was fourth and ahead of team-mate Lance Stroll and Renault’s Esteban Ocon.

AlphaTauri’s Kvyat was seventh and in-front of Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon who was eighth, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who took ninth and team-mate Pierre Gasly who rounded out the top ten.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who took an excursion in the turn two run-off area moments after the Sainz shunt when he turned in ahead of Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean, with the Monegasque-youngster saying the Frenchman “thought we were in a race”, wound up 11th.

Sainz was 12th and ahead of McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, but only ran eight laps due to his incident and did not re-emerge on track.

Alfa Romeo Racing duo Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen were 14th and 15th respectively, with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen 16th.

Williams Racing’s George Russell and Grosjean both went off at turn 15, with the former suffering a similar massive lock-up to Bottas and running deep, while the latter spun going through the right-hander shortly after Verstappen posted his quickest effort of the session.

They finished 17th and 18th, in-front of the aforementioned Hamilton and Latifi.

You can read the full Formula 1 VTB Russian Grand Prix Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1054/russia/practice-1.html

#Formula1 VTB #RussianGrandPrix 2020 Race Preview. #F1 #RussianGP