Practice report
Formula 1 Bahrain GP
Bahrain GP: Verstappen tops FP1 from Bottas
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen set the fastest time in first practice for the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas, as Formula 1's new season commenced.
Alex Kalinauckas
Edited: Mar 26, 2021, 1:49 PM
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Verstappen's best lap of 1m31.294s is 2.334s slower than the 1m28.960s he set to top pre-season testing at the Sakhir track earlier this month, but that was set in much cooler conditions than the cars ran in the mid-afternoon sun in Bahrain on Friday afternoon.
Alpine's Fernando Alonso led the pack out of the pits at the start of the one-hour session, with both Friday practice sessions reduced by 30 minutes in 2021.
Alonso set the first timed lap of FP1 with a 1m37.354s on the hard tyres, but was quickly shuffled back by his teammate Esteban Ocon and then McLaren duo Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris, who took the P1 benchmark down to a 1m33.361s – also on the white-walled rubber.
In a possible early sign of F1 teams adapting their Friday practice run plans with less time available this year, both Mercedes and Red Bull sent their drivers out for soft-tyre runs before 10 minutes had passed.
Sergio Perez took first place with a 1m33.180s on the softs after seven minutes had passed, before Lewis Hamilton used the red-walled rubber to go top with a 1m32.884s on a lap that looked significantly more stable than the car behaviour the Mercedes W12 as displaying in testing.
Bottas went fastest on his first soft-tyre run with a 1m32.707s before he was in turn usurped by Verstappen's first flying lap – a 1m32.214s.
The flurry of fast times in the opening 20 minutes ended at this point as the teams returned to their garages to make set-up changes or conduct higher fuel running.
Norris kicked off the run of improvements at the end of the session with a 1m31.897s – his first soft tyre run, while Daniel Ricciardo did likewise a few minutes later but encountered significant traffic and wound up a few tenths adrift of his teammate as a result.
After Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly had nipped in between the McLarens with a 1m31.993s and 1m32.195s for Ferrari and AlphaTauri respectively, the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers went for their final soft-tyre runs of FP1.
Hamilton went fastest of anyone in the first sector with just under 10 minutes to go but lost time as the lap wore on, wrestling his car at the final corner, and ended up just under 0.1s slower than Norris.
But Bottas was able to hold his speed over the lap and retake the top spot with a 1m31.692s, before Verstappen again demoted the Mercedes driver.
Verstappen's final and best lap included the fastest times in the first and second sectors before a slight wobble out of the final corner cost him a clean sweep on his 1m31.294s.
Norris ended up third ahead of Hamilton, Leclerc and and Perez – who kept hold of the fastest time in the third sector until the end of FP1.
Gasly finished seventh in front of Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari and Ricciardo, while Antonio Giovinazzi rounded out the top 10 for Alfa Romeo.
Sebastian Vettel damaged a set of softs with a heavy lock-up at the double-left complex of Turns 9-10 midway through the session, as he started his new life at Aston Martin with P12 in FP1, one spot ahead of teammate Lance Stroll.
Ocon and Alonso ended up 15th and 16th, with George Russell and Nicholas Latifi following for Williams ahead of the Haas rookies led by Mick Schumacher.
Cla Driver Chassis Laps Time Gap 1 Max Verstappen
Red Bull 12 1'31.394 2 Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes 17 1'31.692 0.298 3 Lando Norris
McLaren 20 1'31.897 0.503 4 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes 15 1'31.921 0.527 5 Charles Leclerc
Ferrari 14 1'31.993 0.599 6 Sergio Perez
Red Bull 15 1'32.071 0.677 7 Pierre Gasly
AlphaTauri 23 1'32.195 0.801 8 Carlos Sainz Jr.
Ferrari 15 1'32.366 0.972 9 Daniel Ricciardo
McLaren 20 1'32.434 1.040 10 Antonio Giovinazzi
Alfa Romeo 16 1'32.786 1.392 11 Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo 18 1'33.134 1.740 12 Sebastian Vettel
Aston Martin 21 1'33.157 1.763 13 Lance Stroll
Aston Martin 20 1'33.233 1.839 14 Yuki Tsunoda
AlphaTauri 21 1'33.329 1.935 15 Esteban Ocon
Alpine 20 1'33.528 2.134 16 Fernando Alonso
Alpine 18 1'33.872 2.478 17 George Russell
Williams 22 1'34.127 2.733 18 Nicholas Latifi
Williams 22 1'34.340 2.946 19 Mick Schumacher
Haas 16 1'34.501 3.107 20 Nikita Mazepin
Haas 16 1'34.975 3.581 View full results
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