Valtteri Bottas set the fastest lap in the first free practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix where he was only 0.025 seconds faster than Max Verstappen in Red Bull while his teammate Lewis Hamilton was only fifth.
Drivers drove their first laps on the Algarve track mostly on hard Pirelli tyres, a C1 compound this weekend, which they are driving for the first time this season on the race weekend, and only Alonso (soft), Tsunoda (soft), Schumacher (medium) and Mazepin (medium) did not open their weekend on hard.
After only 12 minutes, at the moment when he was ninth, 0.9 s behind his teammate Bottas, Hamilton complained about the ‘undriveable’ Mercedes car and asked to enter the pits for ‘some serious changes’ on the car, while the team replied that it might be about low track temperature (32 degrees Celsius).
Red Bull came out on the track only after 15 minutes with a new floor on Verstappen’s RB16B to compare the data to the old specification used by Perez, and Ricciardo crashed Bottas’ fastest time (1: 21.821) in 0.008 s for McLaren.
Verstappen drove 1:21.854 in his first fast lap on hard tyres, and a few laps later he drove 1:21.053 after Bottas also improved his time to 1:21.358.
Bottas was next to take the lead with a lap of 1:20.506, and Hamilton returned to the track on the same set of hard tyres and improved his time to 1:20.963 while Verstappen also improved his time to 1:20.845.
After half of FP1 gone, Ricciardo switched to soft tyres and improved his time to 1:21.204, which at that time was enough for him to be in fourth place behind Bottas, Verstappen and Hamilton.
Verstappen took first place with a lap of 1:20.500 on 13 laps of old hard tyres, 0.006 seconds ahead of Bottas, and then once again improved his time to 1:20.318.
Bottas was the first of the leaders to come out on the track on soft tyres and set the fastest time of 1: 20.221, and a little later he became the first driver to come down in 1:19 with a lap of 1:19.648.
Only 12 minutes before the end of FP1, Verstappen also came out on soft tyres and locked the front tyre on braking in the warm-up lap, but in the first fast lap he drove only 0.025 s slower than Bottas with the best first two sectors.
Leclerc set the third fastest time in his first fast lap on soft tyres, half a second behind Bottas, and Sainz made a mistake in the penultimate corner in his first fast lap on soft.
Bottas remained the fastest ahead of 0.025 s ahead of Verstappen and 0.198 s ahead of Perez in the second Red Bull, and Leclerc was only 0.236 s slower for Ferrari in the late last lap on soft.
Hamilton was only fifth in the second Mercedes after failing to put together a good lap on softs in the final ten minutes despite the best first sector, and Gasly was sixth for AlphaTauri, eight-tenths behind the fastest Bottas.
Russell surprised with the seventh fastest time for Williams, 0.881 s behind Bottas, and Norris was eighth for McLaren after a late last lap on soft and is the last driver with a gap less than a second.
Sainz was ninth for Ferrari after failing to drive a clean lap on the soft and tenth was Ocon in Alpine with 1.1 from behind, a tenth ahead of faster Aston driver Martin Stroll.
Ricciardo was 12th fastest in the second McLaren, almost four tenths behind Norris, and Tsunoda was only 13th behind AlphaTauri, six tenths behind his teammate.
Alonso is the only driver to set his best time on hard tyres, and the Spaniard finished 14th fastest, half a second behind teammate Ocon.
Raikkonen was a faster Alfa Romeo driver in 15th place ahead of Vettel in Aston Martin and Callum Ilott who replaced Giovinazzi in first practice and Latifi was 19th for Williams, separating Haas drivers Schumacher and Mazepin.
The second free practice starts at 16:00 (CET).
FP1 RESULTS
1 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:19.648 | 31 | |
2 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull/Honda | 1:19.673 | 0.025 | 23 |
3 | 11 | Sergio Pérez | Red Bull/Honda | 1:19.846 | 0.198 | 22 |
4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:19.884 | 0.236 | 27 |
5 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:19.967 | 0.319 | 32 |
6 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri/Honda | 1:20.444 | 0.796 | 31 |
7 | 63 | George Russell | Williams/Mercedes | 1:20.529 | 0.881 | 29 |
8 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren/Mercedes | 1:20.635 | 0.987 | 26 |
9 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jr. | Ferrari | 1:20.680 | 1.032 | 27 |
10 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine/Renault | 1:20.800 | 1.152 | 27 |
11 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin/Mercedes | 1:20.894 | 1.246 | 29 |
12 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren/Mercedes | 1:20.995 | 1.347 | 31 |
13 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri/Honda | 1:21.090 | 1.442 | 28 |
14 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine/Renault | 1:21.303 | 1.655 | 31 |
15 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo/Ferrari | 1:21.381 | 1.733 | 25 |
16 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin/Mercedes | 1:21.405 | 1.757 | 31 |
17 | 98 | Callum Ilott | Alfa Romeo/Ferrari | 1:21.806 | 2.158 | 21 |
18 | 47 | Mick Schumacher | Haas/Ferrari | 1:21.939 | 2.291 | 29 |
19 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams/Mercedes | 1:22.293 | 2.645 | 29 |
20 | 9 | Nikita Mazepin | Haas/Ferrari | 1:24.224 | 4.576 | 29 |