Lewis Hamilton i Valtteri Bottas puno su sretniji s ponašanjem Mercedesova bolida u Imoli u odnosu na prvu utrku u Bahrainu, ali upozoravaju da još nismo vidjeli najbolje od Red Bulla.

Valtteri Bottas remained the fastest driver in the second free practice for the Emilia Romagna GP where he was one hundredth faster than Lewis Hamilton while Max Verstappen drove only five laps due to an early car problem.

Valtteri Bottas opened the second weekend of the 2021 F1 season in Imola with the fastest time in the first free practice where the first three drivers were within 0.058 seconds, and training was interrupted twice due to incidents between Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon and a crash for Nikita Mazepin.

Valtteri Bottas is pleased that the last two days of testing have managed to drive a good chunk of laps after losing the first part of the first day due to transmission problems, but believes the main problem with the new Mercedes is a nervous rear end.

Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time on the second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain which is also the fastest lap in this year’s testing and Pierre Gasly was the second fastest for AlphaTauri.

Valtteri Bottas admits he won’t have many more chances to beat Lewis Hamilton in the same car and that next year could be crucial as he has a contract with Mercedes for just one more year.

Watch the comparison of the fastest lap at this year's Barcelona Tests and last year's pole position, which is still a track record - both laps were driven by Bottas and last year's lap is 0.326 s faster.

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are delighted with the reliability and speed of the new Mercedes F1 car for 2020, setting the two fastest laps in Barcelona's first preseason test, as well as completing the most laps as a team.

Valtteri Bottas set the fastest lap on the last day of Barcelona's first test, 1.5 seconds faster than the fastest time so far this year and only three tenths slower than the track record while Ferrari had a problem with the engine which needed to be replaced.

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas set two fastest times on the first day of Barcelona's first Test and drove 151 laps together, but Max Verstappen gave Red Bull 161 laps to complete most laps out of all the teams.