On the way to the 100th hybrid pole: Mercedes dominates the practice session on Friday. On the fast lap the Silver Arrows are again a force. Behind it is Max Verstappen. The gap is clear, but be careful! And Sebastian Vettel? Will be fifth and twelfth.
Barcelona (dpa) - Mercedes has restored the old balance of power for the time being on the hot asphalt, which is almost 50 degrees Celsius, Sebastian Vettel only followed the lead with the new chassis for his lame Ferrari, especially under racing conditions.
After finishing fifth in the morning in the second session on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the four-time Formula 1 world champion did not get past twelfth place. Over a second behind in first free practice at the Spanish Grand Prix, over a second and a half slower than the fastest in second free practice. "I don't expect miracles," Vettel had already emphasized.
After all, he stayed much closer to his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in the morning, who scored 45 points from the first five races of the season, while Vettel collected just ten points out of 130 possible after a series of disappointments. He feels treated equally by the team. In the second one and a half hour unit, the two pilots were more than three tenths of a second apart.
At the very front, Mercedes set the pace after the tire malaise at Silverstone. And how! Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time of the day in the first practice session ahead of Hamilton. Only 39 thousandths of a second separated the two pilots in their silver arrows, which were still painted black. Max Verstappen was 0.939 seconds behind. The 22-year-old Dutchman, who won last Sunday at Silverstone ahead of Hamilton and Bottas, also finished third in the afternoon. This time at best time Hamilton ahead of Bottas. Verstappen was more than eight tenths of a second behind Hamilton.
However, in the racing simulations he was much closer to the two Mercedes men. In his last win he even started from fourth place and stormed to first place thanks to a clever strategy and fantastic drive. And Verstappen has already won in Barcelona: 2016, the first of nine Grand Prix successes to date. In the current ranking, Verstappen is in second place, 30 points behind Hamilton.
At first, Mercedes did not have any major problems with the tires. Supplier Pirelli has brought the three hardest and therefore most durable compounds to Catalonia and thus the same sentences as in the race two weeks ago in Silverstone.
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