Hamilton won the second training session in Portugal
World championship leader Lewis Hamilton rushed to set the fastest time in the second practice session for the Formula 1 race in Portugal. The British Mercedes driver was 0.143 seconds faster than his Dutch rival Max Verstappen in the Red Bull in Portimao on Friday. Third place went to the Finn Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes. Before the third round of the season on Sunday (4:00 p.m. / live Servus TV and Sky), Hamilton is only one point ahead of Verstappen in the overall standings.
Bottas had set the best lap time in the first practice session, but only 25 thousandths of a second before Verstappen, in the end it was the best time of the day. Behind the Dutchman, his team-mate Sergio Perez from Mexico was classified. World champion and Bottas stable rival Lewis Hamilton finished the first practice session in fifth.
Because of the problems at Mercedes in the first two World Championship races, the team brought a number of new components for the car to the Algarve. Nevertheless, Hamilton initially complained about a “fairly inaccessible” Silver Arrow on the difficult route. The wind and the poor grip on the slippery asphalt made all the drivers quite a problem. Hamilton is aiming for his 100th pole position in Formula 1 in qualifying on Saturday.
Sebastian Vettel provided an extraordinary, thoroughly cheerful moment. In the middle of the first practice session, he suddenly drove into the McLaren garage instead of his Aston Martin crew. “I was wondering why no one was there,” the 33-year-old radioed to his new employer with amusement. In the previous year, the McLaren box was still occupied by Vettel's old employer Ferrari – he probably lost his bearings for a moment. More than the training ranks 16 and 15 did not look out.
