Brendan Lines October 20, 2020

Valtteri Bottas was quickest in FP1 at the Portugese Grand Prix sparring with Merecedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to go fastest, as Formula 1 visits the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimao, hosting Portugal’s first Grand Prix since 1996.

It’s a thumbs up from the drivers as the cars turned a wheel in anger for the first time, the last time Formula 1 visited the Portimao circuit was for testing in 2009.

Mercedes were quick to adapt its cars to the unknown levels of grip around the undulating high-speed layout, laden with blind corners at Turn 6 and Turn 11. Bottas set the bar some -12.0s below the previous lap record, with a fastest lap of 1:18.410s on Medium tyres.

“It was quite slippery out on track, it reminded me a lot of when we went to Sochi or Austin for the first time, and we drove on the new tarmac there,” Bottas said after FP1.

“This type of tarmac is tricky in terms of getting grip. Once you lose the grip, you can drop the car quite quickly, and I think that’s the reason why we have seen so many spins today.”

“The track was evolving lap by lap, and it got better throughout the day, but maybe it was reset slightly in between the two sessions.”

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen session was without incident after a spin, the Dutchman said his venture off-track was due to an aerodynamic ‘imbalance,’ his time of 1:19.191s for P3 was just over +.708s from Bottas. Red Bull teammate Alex Albon was three tenths off Verstappen finishing P4.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was the surprise performance of the session in P4, his SF1000 was fitted with a new front-end aero package, the Monegasque was just shy of Verstappen by a tenth. Teammate Sebastian Vettel however finished just outside the top-ten in P11.

Carlos Sainz was the fastest of the McLaren’s in P6, his MCL35 seemed be carrying less niggles out if the box than teammate Lando Norris who complained of steering rack issues, finishing some six tenths behind Sainz for P12.

Sergio Perez said finding race pace could leave some ‘compromised,’ adapting to many of Portimao’s unknowns, but the Mexican made a solid start taking P6, ahead of his teammate Lance Stroll some +2.5s off the pace in P15.

Kimi Räikkönen was the quiet achiever slotting his Alfa Romeo into P8, the sister Alfa of Antonio Giovinazzi had a slight off earlier in the session ending up P16.

Daniel Ricciardo was the best of the Renault cars, Ricciardo completed his fastest lap of 1:20.058s l.p. on Mediums with teammate Esteban Ocon sticking solely to the Harder compound tyre.

Rounding out the top ten was Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly, opting to run only on the Hard tyres, his best time of 1:20.124 was +1.71s off Bottas in P1, but just a tenth up on teammate Daniil Kyvat in P13.