Valtteri Bottas Tag

By FIA Max Verstappen took the lead of the 2021 F1 Driver’s Championship for the first time in his career with a perfectly judged first Monaco Grand Prix victory ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and McLaren’s Lando Norris after pole sitter Charles Leclerc failed to make the start due to a driveshaft issue resulting from damage sustained a crash in qualifying.  On the Monegasque driver’s lap to grid he reported an issue and quickly returned to the pit lane. However, it swiftly became apparent that the home driver would notRead More

By FIA Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took a home pole position for Formula 1’s 2021 Monaco Grand Prix beating Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen with his opening lap of Q3. Leclerc then crashed midway through his final run to deny any of his rivals an opportunity as the red flags came out. In Q1, Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas leds the way, with the Finn setting a session-best time of 1:10.938, around eight hundredths of a second ahead of Leclerc. Verstappen eased through to the second segment in third place thanks to aRead More

By FIA Max Verstappen closed out his 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship campaign in style with a commanding light as to flag victory at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the Red Bull driver finishing more than 10 seconds clear of Mercedes Valtteri Bottas. The Finn’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton was third. When the lights went out at the start, Verstappen made a good getaway and comfortably took the lead ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas with Lewis Hamilton third.  The order changed though on lap six when, with the aidRead More

By FIA Max Verstappen scored his first pole position of 2020 and the third of his career with in qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the Dutchman putting in a phenomenal final lap in Q3 to beat Mercedes Valtteri Bottas by 0.025s. Lewis Hamilton finished third ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Bottas set the pace in the opening segment of qualifying, with the Finn setting an early benchmark of 1:35.699. Hamilton slotted into second place but his lap was swiftly deleted for violating track limits at Turn 20. Read More

By FIA Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas set the pace in the second free practice session for this weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in a session that was red-flagged when Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo caught fire. The opening phase of the 90-minute session was devoted to running on a prototype Pirelli C4 compound tires with drivers completing a mandatory eight laps on the development rubber. But all three leading drivers failed to set their best times on the soft compound tire as a Turn 1 off, track limits and encountering slowerRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas took his fourth pole position of the year by edging new Mercedes team-mate George Russell by just 0.026s in qualifying for the Sakhir Grand Prix as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took third just three hundredths of a second further back. In Q1 Verstappen was one of the last to take to the track but when he did the Dutchman quickly jumped to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 0:54.037. That remained the benchmark for the bulk of the session, but late in theRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas beat Lewis Hamilton by less than a tenth of a second to grab pole position at Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Hamilton looked to be in charge after he took provisional pole with his opening lap of Q3, but in the final runs, Bottas found more pace in the first sector to set himself up for a lap that edged his team-mate by the small margin of 0.097s even as Hamilton also improved. Third place in the session went to Red Bull’s Max VerstappenRead More

By FIA Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the sole practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as Formula 1 returned to Imola for a grand prix weekend for the first time since 2006. Hamilton beat Red Bull Racing’s Max Versatppen by almost three tenths of a second as Valtteri Bottas took third place in the sister Mercedes. With a revised two-day program in place for this event, drivers and team had just 90 minutes in which to prepare for qualifying and tomorrow’s race and with practice compressed fromRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas went quickest in final practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix, edging Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just under three hundredths of a second. The Finnish driver’s effort completed a hat-trick of fastest practice times at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. Mercedes’ drivers concentrated on running Pirelli’s red-banded soft tires and across the session they traded quickest times before Bottas upped his pace with a little over 20 minutes left in the session and set a new target of 1:16.654. Hamilton might have gone quicker but theRead More

By FIA Valtttei Bottas continued to set the pace in practice for this weekend’s FIA Formula 1 Portuguese Grand Prix with the Mercedes driver beating Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to the top of the FP2 timesheet in a session defined by two red flag spells. The session began with a 30-minute spell during which teams tested unmarked 13-inch prototype slick tires for next year, according to a run plan to be defined by Pirelli. The aim of the test was to validate the development of tires for 2021. During the test periodRead More