FP2 Tag

By FIA Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc went quickest in an incident-packed second free practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix that saw red flags shown for c crashes involving Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas. Bottas topped the timesheet early in the session on medium compound tyres and as the field began to make the switch to soft tyres for their performance runs Verstappen crashed out. The Dutchman was still on the medium tyres with which he began the session when he lost the rear on the entry toRead More

By FIA FIA Formula One World Championship title leader Valtteri Bottas took top spot in second practice for this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, narrowly beating Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Vettel topped the morning session in Shanghai using medium compound Pirelli tyres, with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton second and Bottas fifth on soft rubber, but in the FP2 performance runs the Silver Arrows improved, with Bottas eventually edging Vettel by a little under three hundredths of a second and with Hamilton fourth behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. After the teams’ early runs, whichRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel edged team-mate Charles Leclerc by 0.035s as Ferrari continued to dominate the free practice sessions for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix. The early running in Friday’s early evening session was made by Mercedes with Valtteri Bottas topping the timesheet with a lap of 1:30.124 set on medium tyres. That left the Australian Grand Prix winner 0.079s ahead of FP1’s quickest man Charles Leclerc. Lewis Hamilton was third. Ferrari then took the initiative, sending both its drivers out on soft tyres for performance runs just before the half-hour mark.Read More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of second practice for the Australian Grand Prix, beating Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas with the defending champion team followed by the drivers of Red Bull and Ferrari. Hamilton claimed the top spot on the yellow-banded C2 medium compound on offer from Pirelli this weekend. The lap arrived midway through the 90-minute session and eventually left the five-time champion 0.048s clear of Bottas. Behind the Mercedes duo, Max Verstappen was third fastest for Honda-powered Red Bull, though the Dutchman was 0.8s slower thanRead More

By FIA Last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix winner Valtteri Bottas hit the top of the timesheets at the Yas Marina Circuit, edging FP1’s quickest man, Max Verstappen by just four hundredths of a second, with Daniel Ricciardo third in the second Red Bull. Bottas set the pace in the opening part of the session, using ultrasoft tyres to hold top spot just over two tenths of a second ahead of Verstappen, who also ran on ultrasofts. Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen was the first to make the move to hypersoft tyresRead More

By FIA After topping the morning timesheets at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Red Bull Racing again scored a 1-2 in the second practice session for the Mexican Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen outpacing team-mate Daniel Ricciardo by 1500ths of a second. The Dutchman stopped at the edge of the track late in the session, however, with an apparent engine issue. In the morning session the Red Bull duo were comfortably clear of the rest of the field, though Mercedes and Ferrari minimised hypersoft running in FP1, but in the qualifyingRead More

By FIA Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton continued to dominate the timesheets in practice for Sunday’s United States Grand Prix, with the Briton, who could wrap up a fifth title this weekend, running a second clear of Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly in a badly rain-disrupted second session at the Circuit of the Americas. Meanwhile, the fading title hopes of Hamilton’s sole title rival, Sebastian Vettel, were dealt a blow when he was hit with a three-place grid penalty for a rules infringement in the morning practice session. Vettel failed to stay aboveRead More

By FIA Hamilton, who comes into this weekend carrying a 40-point championship lead over chief rival Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, posted a time of 1:33.584 a third of the way through the session after bolting on a set of hypersoft compound tyres as the field set about qualifying simulations. The Briton’s time saw him finish 0.199s ahead of Bottas. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third fastest at the Sochi Autodrom, with the Dutch driver recording a best time of 1:33.827. That left him just under two hundredths of a secondRead More

By FIA Kimi Räikkönen went quickest in the second practice session ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, though the Ferrari driver was just one hundredth of a second clear of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton. Räikkönen, who will move from Maranello squad to Sauber in 2019, set the pace in the early exchanges on ultrasoft Pirelli tyres, setting a best time of 1:40.510 to edge Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. When the field moved to hypersoft compound tyres for their qualifying simulations, Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas jumped to top of the order beforeRead More

By FIA Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen set the fastest time of the second free practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix, edging Drivers’ Championship leader Lewis Hamilton by 0.168s. In the early part of the session Hamilton led the way on medium-compound Pirelli tyres and the Briton headed the timesheet with a time of 1:44.369. That left him just three thousandths of a second clear of Räikkönen, who ran on soft tyres during the opening phase of the 90 minutes, Räikkönen was the first of the frontrunners to move to supersoftRead More