Practice report
Formula 1 Portuguese GP
Portuguese GP: Bottas pips Verstappen by 0.025s in FP1
Valtteri Bottas topped FP1 for Formula 1's 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix by 0.025s over Max Verstappen, who finished second despite complaining of vibrations impacting his vision on his fastest lap.
Alex Kalinauckas
Edited: Apr 30, 2021, 1:07 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
The pair traded fastest times throughout the opening practice session, while Lewis Hamilton finished fifth after complaining of a balance problem early on and then failing to string a flying lap together on the softer tyres in the closing stages.
When the session got underway, Bottas was first to take the track, followed by Sergio Perez, who was initially running a large aero rake at the rear of his Red Bull.
Bottas therefore set the early benchmark at 1m23.778s on the hard tyres, which most of the field used for the first half of the 60-minute session.
The smooth, low-grip surface meant the drivers were finding time the longer their runs went on, with Bottas soon lowering the fastest time to a 1m22.938s.
Hamilton then jumped ahead with a 1m22.772s, also on the hard rubber, but was soon back in the pits complaining that the balance on his W12 was "undriveable" and that Mercedes had to make some "serious changes".
Read Also:
- Hamilton happy to end Pirelli test reluctance with view to 2022
- Can Gasly finally fulfil AlphaTauri qualifying promise?
Carlos Sainz went fastest as the opening 10 minutes ended, before he was usurped by Bottas's 1m21.829s, which brought the Finn's long opening run to a close.
Nearly 10 minutes later, Daniel Ricciardo put his McLaren quickest with a 1m21.821s, before Verstappen put in his first flying effort of the event just past the 20-minute mark having started his session much later than most.
Verstappen duly went to the top of the times with a 1m21.053s – which would have been faster had he not had to catch his car snapping left while running through the long, downhill right-hander of Turn 14 – where Ferrari's Charles Leclerc had run out wide over the large run-off area during the early stages.
Bottas retook the top spot with 1m20.506s when he reappeared again on the hard tyres, which stood as the benchmark over the session's halfway point before Verstappen lowered it twice, first with a 1m20.500s then a 1m20.318s on consecutive runs – despite complaining of struggles at the tight Turn 3 right "every over lap".
Shortly after this, Bottas switched to the soft tyres for the first time and quickly retook the top spot with a 1m20.221s, where he shipped time to Verstappen in the middle sector.
Bottas corrected this next time and lowered the fastest time again to a 1m20.088s, before breaking into the 1m19s on his next flying lap – a 1m19.648s.
Heading into the final 10 minutes of FP1, Verstappen also switched to the soft tyres, but ahead of his flying lap he complained of severe vibrations coming from his tyres, even suggesting he could not see properly as a result.
Red Bull offered to bring him in on safety grounds, but Verstappen joked he would "just visit the dentist after the weekend" and continued onto his flying lap.
Despite the issues, Verstappen set purple sectors in the first two thirds of the lap, but lost time to Bottas in the final sector and wound up 0.025s adrift, after which he pitted to get his tyres checked.
Perez slotted into third late on to finish 0.198s slower than Bottas, with Leclerc also improving as the clock wound down to put his Ferrari fourth.
Hamilton's session finished with several attempts at a flying lap on the softs, with which he would regularly set the fastest time in the first sector before losing time in the middle segment and then aborting his runs.
He therefore ended up 0.319s slower than his teammate's best time, with his best time on the softs coming in at 1m19.967s – the final lap under the 1m20s bracket.
Pierre Gasly took sixth for AlphaTauri ahead of George Russell, who backed up Williams's strong practice form at Imola with seventh.
Lando Norris took eighth for McLaren ahead of Sainz, while Esteban Ocon rounded out the top 10 in his Alpine.
Sebastian Vettel provided some comic relief halfway through the session when he briefly parked up at the McLaren pits, where he had been used to stopping with Ferrari in 2020, before rolling up to his Aston Martin garage and apologising to his squad.
He finished P16, one spot ahead of Callum Ilott, who made his F1 weekend debut in place of Antonio Giovinazzi and finished two places behind Kimi Raikkonen in the other Alfa Romeo.
Cla Driver Chassis Laps Time Gap 1 Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes 31 1'19.648 2 Max Verstappen
Red Bull 23 1'19.673 0.025 3 Sergio Perez
Red Bull 22 1'19.846 0.198 4 Charles Leclerc
Ferrari 27 1'19.884 0.236 5 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes 32 1'19.967 0.319 6 Pierre Gasly
AlphaTauri 31 1'20.444 0.796 7 George Russell
Williams 29 1'20.529 0.881 8 Lando Norris
McLaren 26 1'20.635 0.987 9 Carlos Sainz Jr.
Ferrari 27 1'20.680 1.032 10 Esteban Ocon
Alpine 27 1'20.800 1.152 11 Lance Stroll
Aston Martin 29 1'20.894 1.246 12 Daniel Ricciardo
McLaren 31 1'20.995 1.347 13 Yuki Tsunoda
AlphaTauri 28 1'21.090 1.442 14 Fernando Alonso
Alpine 31 1'21.303 1.655 15 Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo 25 1'21.381 1.733 16 Sebastian Vettel
Aston Martin 31 1'21.405 1.757 17 Callum Ilott
Alfa Romeo 21 1'21.806 2.158 18 Mick Schumacher
Haas 29 1'21.939 2.291 19 Nicholas Latifi
Williams 29 1'22.293 2.645 20 Nikita Mazepin
Haas 29 1'24.224 4.576 View full results
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Can Gasly finally fulfil AlphaTauri qualifying promise?
Next article Portuguese GP practice as it happened
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Alex Kalinauckas
Who is Kimi Antonelli, F1 sprint polesitter at just 18?
Formula 1
Formula 1 May 3, 2025
Who is Kimi Antonelli, F1 sprint polesitter at just 18?
Why Bottas has the edge over Perez in 2026 F1 return race
Formula 1
Formula 1
Japanese GP
Apr 2, 2025
Why Bottas has the edge over Perez in 2026 F1 return race
What if Red Bull solved its second-car problem with a paint job?
Formula 1
Formula 1
Japanese GP
Apr 1, 2025
What if Red Bull solved its second-car problem with a paint job?
Latest news
Las Vegas GP reveals neon sign-inspired trophy design
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Las Vegas GP
28 min
Las Vegas GP reveals neon sign-inspired trophy design
IndyCar 2026 season review: Juncos Hollinger Racing
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 31 min
IndyCar 2026 season review: Juncos Hollinger Racing
Indy NXT unveils 15-race 2027 schedule with four doubleheaders
Indy NXT
IndL Indy NXT 36 min
Indy NXT unveils 15-race 2027 schedule with four doubleheaders
Why aerodynamics will become "even more important" under 2027 MotoGP regulations
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
1 h
Why aerodynamics will become "even more important" under 2027 MotoGP regulations
Feature
Discover prime content
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Formula 1
By Kevin Turner
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe