FP1

Sebastien Buemi tops a Toyota 1-2 lead in the 6 Hours of Bahrain FP1

Kevin Peterson04 mins

In Free Practice 1 on Thursday, Toyota 1-2, Sebastien Buemi and Jose Maria Lopez lead the No. 8 and 7 GR010 hybrids, respectively, and are the only drivers to mark 1 minute 51 seconds on a hot afternoon. Buemi’s best was 1: 50.571, up 0.4 seconds in his sister car, and Nicolas Lapierre was the third fastest in the No. 36 Alpine A480 hypercar class, just one-tenth from Lopez. But Alpine wasn’t the third fastest overall. For Lapierre, Antonio Felix da Costa made the best pit in the No. 38 Jota ORECA 07 LMP2 car. It was 1 minute 51.083 seconds, 0.5 seconds behind Toyota’s best time, and 0.0015 seconds at Alpine. The second fastest LMP2 was in the hands of a Loic Duval pro, but the fastest of any professional amateur car. It was 0.129 off from Dacosta and 0.1 seconds off from Alpine. Sean Geleal, Giedo van der Garde and Filipe Albuquerque have completed the LMP2 Top 5 in the second (No. 28) Jota, No. 29 Racing Team Nederland and No. 22 United Autosports Orecas respectively. GTE posted the second fastest time in the combined GTE field with GTE Am and saw a storyline that appeared to be set to go through a race meeting. Porsche factory driver Richard Lietz beat the time with the No. 91 Pro Car (1: 57.983), Matteo Cairoli was the second fastest in the GTE combined order, with the No. 56 Team Project 1 GTE AM Porsche 1: 58.177. bottom. They are the top two in Porsche 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and No. A pair of 92 Pro Cars, Dempsey Proton GTE Amcars, and two Amaston Martins followed in order before the first Ferrari – 8th-8th fastest. But it wasn’t a professional car. In fact, three Am-class 488 GTEs beat the fastest of the two pro cars. This is after Ferrari has made it very clear that he is dissatisfied with the BoP being offered to the car here. Power savings and minor weight adjustments that have been criticized by the Italian camp. “We were forced to adopt a defensive strategy following the announcement of new balance of payments parameters that would disable automatic balance of payments,” Ferrari said in a media release at the pre-race conference. However, I don’t think the FP1 pace of professional cars in particular is maximizing its potential. Some Am Ferraris have a BoP that is more disadvantageous than the Pro 488, surpassing today’s Pro cars.

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Lewis Hamilton tops Turkish GP FP1

Kevin Peterson04 mins

Lewis Hamilton led the field in the first practice session for the Turkish Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver edging Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by a comfortable margin of 0.425s. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc concluded his morning in third position, very close to the Dutchman while Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz completed the top five in the incident-free session. Local weather forecasts are predicting a wet weekend, but the opening practice session kicked off under a cloudy but sunny sky, and 20°C air temperatures. To help cope with Istanbul Park’s water-blasted higher grip surface, Pirelli is supplying its softest three compounds. The novelty at the outset on Friday was Red Bull’s revamped RB16B livery that pays tribute to its engine partner Honda that will depart F1 at the end of the season. With the usual installation laps and rake experiences out of the way, Hamilton was quick to charge to the top, but the Briton was overhauled in short order by Verstappen. But Alpine’s Esteban Ocon briefly settled the matter between the two title contenders by leap-frogging both, with McLaren’s Lando Norris following right behind. However, Hamilton pumped in a lap in the 1m24s on the soft tyre to reassert his authority over the young guns. As the session unfolded, the 100-time Grand Prix winner continued to lower the benchmark, with Verstappen in tow, 0.425s behind. The soft rubber was the tyre of choice for the entire field during the session. Behind the two inseparable front-runners, Leclerc attempted a flyer on the red-walled compound that nearly allowed the Scuderia charger to pip Verstappen for second. In the end however, the Monegasque’s best effort came up just 0.051s short. Behind the leading trio, Bottas worked diligently to conclude his morning fourth, just edging the second Ferrari of Sainz. Thereafter followed Ocon, the faster of the two Alpine drivers, Norris, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez who rounded off the top ten, a fair distance once again from his Red Bull teammate. The second half of the field lined up also enjoyed an incident-free session, with Williams’ George Russell clocking in P11, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. Bringing up the rear, Mick Schumacher comfortably edged his Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin.

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