Nico Hulkenberg Tag

By FIA Valtteri Bottas took his second pole position of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship at the end of a marathon, incident-packed qualifying session that saw two red flag periods for separate crashes involving Robert Kubica and pole position contender Charles Leclerc. Bottas made the best of a tight final run in Q3, maximising a good two to edge team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.059s, with Sebastian Vettel third ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. In Q1, Vettel led the early exchanges, setting a time of 1:42.348.Read 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 Charles Leclerc took the first pole position of his career, beating Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel by almost three tenths of a second as the Italian squad locked out the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Defending champion Lewis Hamilton was forced to settle for P3, 0.030 behind Vettel, ahead of Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas. At the start of the session Ferrari quickly seized control, with Leclerc taking P1 thanks to a lap of 1:28.495. Vettel slotted into P2, 0.238s behind his team-mate, while ValtteriRead 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 made it a clean sweep of practice sessions at Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit, with the Mercedes driver claiming top sport in FP3 with 0.264s in hand over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Charles Leclerc finished third in the second Ferrari. Of the expected frontrunners, Vettel was the first to bolt on a set of red walled C4 tyres with around a quarter of the session left to run. At the point the German sat in P3 0.379s off Hamilton who set the quickest time of the opening phaseRead 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 Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheet on the final day of pre-season Formula 1 testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The Ferrari driver ended the day just 0.003s ahead of 2018 F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, as Mercedes at last showed some true pace. Vettel’s final day benchmark arrived in the morning session. The German bolted on a set of C5 compound Pirelli tyres shortly before the lunch break and posted a time of 1:16.221. Vettel’s day ended early, however. The German added 42 laps to his morning total ofRead More

By FIA McLaren’s Carlos Sainz set the fastest lap of pre-season F1 testing so far on a day when Ferrari managed just one afternoon installation lap for Charles Leclerc following a morning crash involving Sebastian Vettel that sidelined the team for most of the day. Sainz recorded the best time of day two of this final pre-season test midway through the morning session. The Spanish driver used the C4 compound Pirelli tyres to a lap of 1:17.144s. As many teams focused on longer runs in the afternoon the time comfortablyRead More

By FIA McLaren rookie Lando Norris went quickest on the opening day of the second F1 pre-season test of 2019, despite twice stopping on track during the session. Norris first brought out the red flag with a little over 90 minutes left in the morning session when his McLaren was halted with what was later reported as a loss of hydraulic pressure. The British driver, who had completed 38 laps to that point, missed the remainder of the morning session but returned to the action after lunch. Late in theRead More

By FIA Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg set the fastest time of the first week of 2019 pre-season Formula 1 testing in Barcelona, beating Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon by two tenths of a second. In the morning Albon maintained the hold on top spot established by Toro Rosso on day three, when Daniil Kvyat claimed that session’s fastest time, but this afternoon Hulkenberg moved well clear of the 1:17.637 to post a lap of 1:17.393. The time was the quickest of the opening four days of pre-season testing and like the Toro RossoRead More