Racetrackmasters

Alfa Romeo could have some points coming their way after winning the right to appeal Kimi Raikkonen’s penalty at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Raikkonen saw P9 taken away from him after he had initially spun behind the Safety Car at Turn 3 in Imola as drivers prepared for a rolling race restart, but hesitation from the team meant that Raikkonen did not retake his original position before the first safety car line. That meant that he was then required to take the restart from the pit lane, something which the Finn did not do, leading to a post-race 30-second time penalty. Alfa Romeo had asked for clarification from the race director shortly after Raikkonen’s spin but received no response prior to the race resuming, while in issuing the penalty the stewards acknowledged the confusion of the regulations but had no choice other than to issue the mandatory penalty. The regulations have been amended to avoid any future incidents such as Raikkonen’s but they have also deemed Alfa Romeo’s right to appeal admissible because full information on what the right course of action would be was not available at the time. The FIA said: “Subsequent to the decision and as part of this present hearing, the Stewards have discovered that the specific cases that they referred to were not following a Red Flag. “While this was only one element among many considered by the Stewards, this information was unavailable to the Competitor at the time of the original decision and was a part of the discussion by the Stewards and is therefore deemed significant and relevant.” The full appeal will be heard prior to the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas successfully claimed pole position from Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes front-row lock-out for Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix at Portimão. The Finn’s best Q3 time of 1:18.348s was just 0.007s quicker than Hamilton, while the two Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were several tenths off the pace as they claimed the second row of the grid. Carlos Sainz was the highest-placed Ferrari in fifth ahead of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and McLaren’s Lando Norris, after a shock early elimination for Daniel Ricciardo who missed the cut at the end of Q1. Ahead of the start of qualifying at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, there was heightened activity at the Mercedes garage as mechanics completed their work reassembling Valtteri Bottas’ car. Meanwhile their McLaren counterparts had themselves only just finished addressing an ECU issue on Lando Norris’ MCL35M. However everyone was ready for action when the lights went green at the end of pit lane for the start of qualifying in bright, breezy and rather cool conditions. Haas’ Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin led the way out, followed by the two McLarens on medium tyres, including Norris. Mazepin set the first time of the session which was soon bumped off the top spot by Norris and then by Lance Stroll and Antonio Giovinazzi. The first serious run came from Carlos Sainz with a lap of 1:19.480s, while his Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc had his first lap time deleted for exceeding track limits. His next was nonetheless good enough for second place, but he was soon pushed aside again by a sequence of flying laps from Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and the Alpines of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon. After an extra warm-up lap, Lewis Hamilton made his presence felt by going top with just under ten minutes on the clock with a time of 1:18.726s. That was half a second quicker than Sainz but his lap was also then deleted, allowing Sainz to reclaim top honours for a few seconds before Bottas went a tenth faster. Hamilton played it safe with his next run which was good enough for sixth place behind the two Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen. Perez subsequently ran into the gravel at turn 4 but was able to extricate himself, shortly after Alonso had also briefly spun at the same corner as a result of the blustery tailwind conditions. With time running out, the bottom five consisted of the two Haas drivers (Schumacher and Mazepin) and both Williams (George Russell and Nicholas Latifi), together with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, while Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was on the bubble. There was still plenty of time for them to punch in one final effort, and Vettel duly leapt up to fourth place and safety just as Norris was finally able to find some pace to move to the top ahead of Bottas. Bottas and Hamilton both improved on their final Q1 runs to straddle Norris in first and third respectively, with Ocon also improving to fourth ahead of Sainz, Perez, Leclerc, Vettel, Giovinazzi and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly. Tsunoda battled his way to safety in 12th and Russell scraped through in 15th by four hundredths, but a late improvement for Ocon had the knock-on effect of producing a shock elimination for Daniel Ricciardo in the second McLaren. Stroll also found himself in the drop zone alongside Latifi, Schumacher and Mazepin as the dust settled. When the session resumed, everyone hit the track with most sporting the medium compound with the notable exception of Norris, Gasly and Tsunoda. Sainz set the early benchmark with a time of 1:19.560s which was soon bettered by Leclerc. Verstappen was a third of a second quicker still, and then it was the Mercedes drivers’ turn to play their hand with Hamilton finding a totally new gear with a time of 1:17.968s, almost half a second quicker than Bottas. Meanwhile Norris used his soft tyres to slot into third place ahead of Ocon, Perez, Vettel and Verstappen. While the medium compound was clearly the best tyres to stat the race on, the soft compound was giving other drivers such as Norris such an advantage that Ferrari and even Red Bull were struggling for pace and now risked possibly missing the cut if they stuck to the same strategy. Even Hamilton and Bottas made a precautionary change to the red-walled tyres before their final runs, albeit with the hope of aborting their runs should they not be needed. Only Leclerc stayed on the mediums and he was soon shuffled back by a better effort from the soft-shod Gasly, but the Monegasque then countered with a better lap of his own to ensure safe passage in sixth place. The final laps flew thick and fast. Hamilton, Bottas and Norris held on to the top spots ahead of Ocon with Verstappen also safely through ahead of the two Ferraris, and Perez cutting it a little fine in eighth ahead of Vettel and Gasly. Just missing out was Russell despite a much improved final run leaving him in 11th place on the Sunday’s grid, with Giovinazzi, Alonso, Tsunoda and Raikkonen also eliminated. As the final round of qualifying got underway, most of the drivers opted for an extra warm-up lap on their soft tyres. However Verstappen was straight on it and looked set to take provisional pole, only to end up surviving a scary oversteer moment at turn 4 that cost him his lap time for straying outside the track limits. That allowed Bottas to take the top spot by 1:18.348s by seven thousandths of a second from Hamilton, with Perez third ahead of Sainz, Norris and Leclerc. As the cars came out for their final runs, Hamilton changed to the medium tyres that had worked so well for him in Q2. Bottas followed his team mate’s lead, while everyone else was on the soft compound. Aware that Verstappen hadn’t posted a time yet, the McLaren pit wall cheekily advised Norris “Don’t do…

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen set two laps quick enough for top spot during final practice for Formula 1’s Portuguese Grand Prix. Verstappen finished the one-hour session with a best time of 1:18.489s to finish 0.236s clear of title rival Lewis Hamilton at Portimao. Valtteri Bottas finished in third position for Mercedes while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez took fourth, as Formula 1’s leading two teams grabbed the top positions. Alpine caught the eye through Friday practice and maintained that speed through Saturday lunchtime’s session. While Fernando Alonso had a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits, running wide at Turn 1, Esteban Ocon placed fifth overall. Ocon’s time left him ahead of Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz while Lando Norris was the lead McLaren driver in eighth position. AlphaTauri fared better than its Friday display, with Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda ninth and 11th respectively, as Alfa Romeo was represented inside the top 10 by Kimi Raikkonen. In a closely-contested session Daniel Ricciardo and Antonio Giovinazzi took 12th and 13th respectively but were both within 1.1s of pacesetter Verstappen. Haas has spent 2021 at the back of the grid but Mick Schumacher suggested after Friday practice that he could creep into contention for Q2. Schumacher delivered on that notion by placing 15th through final practice. Conversely Aston Martin’s subdued 2021 campaign showed little sign of taking an upturn in fortunes. Lance Stroll, running the updated AMR21, was only 16th, while Sebastian Vettel could muster only 18th spot. They were split by Williams’ George Russell, who slipped down the leaderboard compared to Friday, while Nicholas Latifi and Nikita Mazepin capped the order. Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:18.489s 21 2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:18.725s + 0.236s 21 3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:18.820s + 0.331s 19 4 Sergio Pérez Red Bull 1:18.840s + 0.351s 24 5 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:18.860s + 0.371s 19 6 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:19.001s + 0.512s 23 7 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:19.050s + 0.561s 24 8 Lando Norris McLaren 1:19.272s + 0.783s 18 9 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 1:19.374s + 0.885s 25 10 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo 1:19.415s + 0.926s 25 11 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 1:19.485s + 0.996s 25 12 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 1:19.582s + 1.093s 19 13 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 1:19.588s + 1.099s 23 14 Fernando Alonso Alpine 1:19.949s + 1.460s 20 15 Mick Schumacher Haas 1:20.033s + 1.544s 21 16 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:20.090s + 1.601s 17 17 George Russell Williams 1:20.127s + 1.638s 18 18 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 1:20.214s + 1.725s 21 19 Nicholas Latifi Williams 1:20.681s + 2.192s 19 20 Nikita Mazepin Haas 1:20.690s + 2.201s 20

It was back to business as usual on Friday at Portimao with Mercedes leading the timesheet in both practice sessions. Still, it was a day of minor problems for the world champions. They suffered from the wind like everyone else, according to Andrew Shovlin, but that wasn’t the only thing. “Valtteri seemed quite comfortable with the car, he was on the pace from the start and able to generate good grip from the tyres which allowed him to get into some useful setup investigations. Lewis struggled more with the rear end and whilst he topped the timesheets, we’ve got some work to do to improve the balance for him tomorrow”, said Shovlin, the chief engineer at Mercedes. Hamilton was a little short of time in the second free practice session, especially on the long runs, but Shovlin has a logical explanation for that. “We’d found some damage on both cars at the end of the day that will have been costing some performance and will certainly explain some of Lewis’s issues on the long run but even with that corrected, we could do with finding a bit more pace.” So for now, Mercedes is slightly the favourite in Portugal, especially as both drivers are competing at the head of the field, something that was not the case at Red Bull Racing. However, at Mercedes, they are also taking into account competition from a different quarter. ” The single lap looks really close with Red Bull but Ferrari were also consistently around our pace”, said Shovlin.

The third Grand Prix of the 2021 season also means the third round in the battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton won in Bahrain, but Verstappen managed to win the race in Imola. In Portimao, there are again chances for both drivers and therefore they are both looking for the perfect setup, also Martin Brundle sees. “Hamilton was complaining a lot about the grip and let it be known over the radio that there is still a lot to do with the set-up of his car,” Brundle explained to Sky Sports. He sees that Red Bull were already close in FP1 and expects it to be exciting. “Red Bull are close to Mercedes there and that’s great for the fans.” Karun Chandhok let the same Sky Sports know that after the first free practice he sees a clear faster team, although the differences are very small. Mercedes already ruled Portimao in 2020 and Chandhok sees tentative signs that the German team will be the fastest again this year. “It seems like this is more of a track for the Mercedes cars, but Red Bull has brought updates. I don’t expect Red Bull to have the lead as they did in Bahrain”. A lot will depend on the kilometres they can do in Portugal and the setup they can fine-tune as a result.

After his difficult morning session, Lewis Hamilton bounced back to top the second practice session for the Portuguese Grand Prix, followed by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who ended up 143 thousands of a second down on the Briton’s benchmark time. At the beginning of the session, air temperatures were 19 Celsius degrees with track temperatures being registered at 39 Celsius degrees, albeit the strong wind continued to present a slight distraction to the drivers. Most of the drivers started their afternoon session at Portimao on the yellow-banded Pirelli tyre with only Haas driver Nikita Mazepin opting for the Hard compound. At the end of the first runs, Bottas found himself on the top of the leaderboard, setting a benchmark of 1m20.423 on the medium compound. However, Max Verstappen came back on the medium compound he used during his first stint to jump to the top with a time of 1m20.322. Mercedes drivers were the first to be equipped with the red-banded soft compound. Interestingly, neither of them found a huge improvement on the soft compound with Hamilton registering the better time with a 1m19.837. His team mate failed to get close to Hamilton with Bottas posting a 1m20.181. The Red Bulls were late to join the party on the soft compound. Verstappen found just under four tenths of a second on the fresh, brand-new soft compound and failed to endanger Hamilton’s benchmark time. His team mate Sergio Perez struggled for one-lap pace in the afternoon and finished down in P10 with his best time being over six tenths of a second down on the seven-time world champion’s time. Ferrari and Alpine continued to impress in the second practice session with Carlos Sainz registering the fourth fastest time with a time of 1m20.197. Despite his strong pace during his race simulation, Charles Leclerc failed to extract the maximum of his SF21 over one qualifying simulation lap on lower fuel load, finishing seventh quickest. Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso headed the Alpine duo by beating his team mate Esteban Ocon only by 15 thousands of a second.

The return of spectators to Formula 1 may now be looming large, despite the fact that three of the next four grands prix will definitely be ‘ghost races’. The optimism also comes despite the official cancellation of the Canadian GP, whose June event will be replaced by 2020 substitute venue Istanbul. The good news for Montreal promoter Francois Dumontier is that Formula 1 has extended the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s existing deal for two more years, taking the contract all the way to 2031. Dumontier told La Presse that it is a “much less expensive” deal “than the majority of the grands prix in the championship”. “It’s a transaction that makes sense for Quebec,” said economics minister Pierre Fitzgibbon. Another shot of good news is that Hungaroring boss Zsolt Gyulai is hoping that spectators will be able to attend that race on August 1. “Tickets for the race are on sale, and we hope that the outbreak situation will improve significantly by August and we can host fans in the stands, just like football,” he said. Also bullish about the prospect of spectators is Silverstone’s Stuart Pringle, who is excited about hosting Formula 1’s first ever ‘sprint qualifying’ race. “Given we have very nearly sold out of tickets for Sunday, Saturday now represents a great opportunity for fans to see a Formula 1 race at Silverstone this summer,” he said. Finally, the Monaco Hebdo newspaper reports that health restrictions are easing in the Principality, and therefore the idea of “closed doors” at the forthcoming grand prix “for the moment is ruled out”. The publication said “several scenarios” are being studied, including crowd capacities of up to 50 percent.

Aston Martin has backed away after threatening legal action over Formula 1’s aerodynamic rule changes for 2021. Boss Otmar Szafnauer, presumably acting on behalf of billionaire team owner Lawrence Stroll, had hinted he suspects Liberty Media may have been part of the push to specifically disadvantage the Mercedes-like ‘low rake’ teams. But Auto Motor und Sport correspondent Michael Schmidt said Aston Martin has now given up that fight in order to not be regarded as “a bad loser”. “We just wanted to clarify with the FIA whether everything was correctly done during the rule-making process,” Szafnauer now says. The Aston Martin narrative may have fallen apart when even Mercedes technical boss James Allison admitted that all the teams were part of that process. “We all agreed with how the downforce should be reduced,” he said. “We also asked ourselves if it will affect every team, every concept equally, because of course there was the fear that a competitor would benefit.” It is also believed that Aston Martin’s argument crumbled when the sport’s major players got together in the most recent meeting of the F1 technical commission. McLaren’s James Key says of the saga: “The teams agreed that, of all the suggestions that were on the table, the one with the underbody was the best and the safest. “We could have made the rear wing smaller, but nobody wanted that,” he explained. “If someone had recognised a major disadvantage for themselves, they could have said it back then.”

Silverstone have announced that the British Grand Prix will be the first event to hold the Sprint Qualifying when F1 teams and drivers touch down at the venue in mid July. The shorter sprint qualifying race will be about one-third of the distance of a grand prix, with the hope being that fans are drawn in by the action on track. The results from the race will determine the grid for Sunday’s race, with the top three drivers receiving points. “Silverstone are delighted to confirm that the Formula 1 British Grand Prix will be the first event to trial the Sprint Qualifying format that was announced by Formula 1 and the FIA on April 26,” read a statement on the official Silverstone website. Silverstone managing director Stuart Pringle was delighted to announce the news, with Silverstone ready to play host to the new format. “We are incredibly excited that Silverstone fans will be the first to experience the Formula 1 sprint qualifying format at this year’s British Grand Prix,” said Pringle. “We have not seen such a major timetable shake up in the sport for years and I appreciate the continued efforts being made by Formula 1 and the FIA to enhance the entertainment on track giving our spectators even more to look forward to this July. “The Friday and Saturday crowds at Silverstone are arguably the largest on the F1 calendar and, following the live events drought of 2020, this year will be no exception. Given we have very nearly sold out of tickets for Sunday, Saturday now represents a great opportunity for fans to see a Formula 1 race at Silverstone this summer.”