Valtteri Bottas Tag

Mercedes again topped the practice timesheets at Monza, but after Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the first practice, the afternoon session saw team-mate Valtteri Bottas take top spot. The Finn set a best time of 1:21.406s on the supersoft compound tyres to edge out Hamilton by just fibve hundredths of a second. Afetr finishing the morning session 1.1s behind FP1 pacesetter Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel moved Ferrari closer to the Silver Arrows with a best of lap of 1:21.546 that left him just a tenth of a second behind Bottas. Team-mateRead More

Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes 1-2 in first practice ahead of Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix with the three-time champion finishing a second clear of championship leader Sebastian Vettel who finished third behind Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton set a best lap of 1:21.537s on the supersoft compound Pirelli tyres to finish 0.435 seconds ahead of Bottas, with Vettel 1.115s off the pace. With the session starting under heavily overcast skies, drivers quickly set about their preparations and after half and hour Bottas was in charge on soft tyres, with the Finn inRead More

Lewis Hamilton took over at the top of the timesheets at Spa-Francorchamps, beating first practice pacesetter Kimi Räikkonen by almost three tenths of a second. Valtteri Bottas was third in a session disrupted late in the session. The quickest times of the session arrived just after the half hour mark, when the teams bolted on ultrasoft tyres for qualifying simulations. Vettel was first to show, grabbing P1 with a lap of 1:45.235. However, that was swiftly eclipsed by Bottas, the Mercedes driver edging ahead with a time of 1m45.180s. Raikkonen,Read More

Lewis Hamilton powered to a lights-to-flag victory at Silverstone to claim his fifth career British Grand Prix win and equal the record set by F1 legends Jim Clark and Alain Prost. In a remarkable finish to the race, both Kimi Raikkonen and championship leader Sebastian Vettel suffered punctures in the closing laps to allow Valtteri Bottas through to seal a Mercedes one-two. Raikkonen recovered on new tyres to claim the final podium spot. In the final laps Hamilton had held the lead from Raikkonen and Bottas, with Vettel in fourthRead More

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas maintained his grip on the top of the timesheets at Silverstone but he was pushed hard by team-mate Lewis Hamilton who finished under five hundredths of a second adrift of the Finn. Bottas had topped the opening session by just seven hundredths of a second but his time of 1:29.106 was eclipsed early in the session as Hamilton quickly dipped into the 1m28s bracket on soft tyres. He then improved to time of 1:28.543 to sit six tenths ahead of the rest of the field. Half anRead More

Valtteri Bottas set the quickest time of opening practice for the British Grand Prix, finishing seven hundredths of a second ahead of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel became the first driver to run with the new Shield frontal impact protection system being trialled by the FIA. The Shield, a transparent open canopy system constructed using polycarbonate and extending down the nose of the car, was fitted to Vettel’s Ferrari ahead of the session. He then completed a single installation lap with the device in place before returning toRead More

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas took his second career Formula One victory with a powerful yet controlled drive lights to flag win ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo held off a late surge from Lewis Hamilton to take the final podium position. Bottas got away best at the start, but so good was his getaway that there was the suspicion the Finn had jumped the start. Further back Max Verstappen made the poorest start, bogging down badly when the lights went out. He was swamped by rivals andRead More

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas scored his second pole position in Austria, edging Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by just four hundredths of a second. Lewis Hamilton finished third but a grid penalty for a changed gearbox is set to drop the Briton to eighth for tomorrow’s race start. Bottas established the narrow advantage in the opening runs of Q3 and when Romain Grosjean’s Haas broke down on track as the quickest men began their final flyers, the yellow flags shown as a result meant that there could be no improvement. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen,Read More

Sebastian Vettel took over at top of the practice timesheets at the Red Bull Ring finishing just under three tenths of a second clear of chief title rival Lewis Hamilton who suffered a brake failure late in the session. The Ferrari driver set a best time of 1:05.092 with just under a quarter of an hour left in the session. The German had been on course to claim top spot but after setting two fastest first sectors he came across a slower Hamilton and lost time in the last partRead More

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest-ever lap of the Red Bull Ring as he powered into early command of practice for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix. Until this morning Hamilton’s own 2016 Q2 lap of 1:06.228 had stood as the marker for quickest lap on the Styrian track but the three-time championship brushed past that time in the second half of this morning’s opening practice session at the Spielberg circuit, lapping in 1:05.975 on the soft tyres, the hardest of the three compounds on offer this weekend. Hamilton’s soft-tyre time wasRead More