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So we saw Hamilton and Verstappen go wheel-to-wheel once again with Verstappen managing to barge his way into the lead at Turn 1, after making a better start than Hamilton. After the race Hamilton said he gave Max Verstappen room, stating he was thinking of the long game; if he hadn’t we may have seen both cars in the gravel at turn 1. We also saw Bottas lose a place to Leclerc who moved his Ferrari up to 3rd.
Bottas was starting on pole in Portugal after a great qualifying lap, a mistake from Max Verstappen gave the Mercedes 1st and 2nd on the grid and the Redbulls 3rd and 4th.
In 5th Sainz started on the softs with everyone in front on the mediums. In the opening lap, we saw Stroll move up to 16th and Norris up two 6th with Sainz passing Perez. A blistering start from Ricciardo saw him eat up 3 places into 13th. Bottas held onto 1st with Hamilton a few seconds adrift, and Max close to the gearbox of Hamilton.
There is a new season to look forward to and plenty of changes with a few departures, some old faces re-joining and new deals, drivers and cars to look forward to and hopefully spectators too.
One of the biggest departures from the series sees Matt Neal leaving the BTCC after making his debut in 1991, along with his teammate from last season Dan Cammish who makes a return to the Porsche Carrera Cup.
In what was the 2nd race of the 2021 calendar we saw a wet start to the EMILIA ROMAGNA GRAND Prix at the Imola Circuit.
With qualifying showing the pace of Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and not to mention Lando Norris (Mclaren), who unfortunately lost out on his top 3 position after a track limit infringement. The wet start was sure to be an opportunity for some of these “mid-field” teams, both with strategy and the possibility of mistakes from other drivers, to make their way up the points.
It has been over 100 days since last season ended in Abu Dhabi back in December but now with the new rules, this season is expected to deliver even more closer racing. The early indications are that the RedBulls and particularly the likes of Max Verstappen are going to be bringing the fight this year to Mercedes and our 7 times World Champ Lewis Hamilton.
For the first time Bahrain opens up the FIA Formula One race season, the scene of that truly horrific accident last year which saw The HAAS Car of Romain Grosjean burst into a ball of flames live on our TV screens.
Red Bull Racings Max Verstappen tops the Friday Free Practice Sessions 1 & 2.
Verstappen posted the fastest time in FP1 ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and then followed that up under the Bahrain floodlights into FP2 – The evening session with another fastest time ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris.
amilton could only manage P4 in FP1 and P3 in FP2 from the seat of his Mercedes where he was unable to get within two-tenths of Verstappen’s Red Bull.
