Bojan Vrbnjak
Valtteri Bottas si is in today’s third free practice GP of Portugal secured the third best time of the racing weekend with a new track record. Finn it goes so best prepared for the afternoon qualifiers. After yesterday's difficult day of the first two free practice sessions, the racers had excellent conditions today.
Absolutely perfect however, it was not, because a good minute before the official end of the training, it had to be completed prematurely with red flag. And what was the reason? At the exit bend 14 namely, he became independent drainage channel cover at the edge of the track.
result
Valtteri Bottas has, as said, set a new track record with time 1: 16.654 minutes, and that was only for 0,026 seconds faster than a teammate Lewis Hamilton. Both racers Mercedesa they achieved their time on a soft rubber compound. Even behind a pair of silver arrows, it was surprisingly close. Because Max Verstappen he was one and a half tenths of a second behind in third place.
He took care of the biggest surprise Pierre Gasly in the race car Alpha Tauri. The Frenchman not only landed in an excellent fourth place, but in doing so he achieved only a good tenth of a time worse than Max Verstappn in a stronger Red Bullu. Alex Albon, who finished third in training in fifth place, is in favor Gasly lagged by two tenths of a second.
We find it in sixth place Charles Leclerc from the team Ferrari, and to the tenth place they were classified Carlos Sainz from McLaren, Sergio Perez from Racing Point, Lando Norris from McLaren and Esteban Ocon from Renault.
From the eleventh place onwards, the racers were ranked as follows: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), Daniil Kvyat (AlphaTauri), Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo), Daniel Ricciardo (Renault), George Russell (Williams), Lance stroll (RacingPoint), Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo), Kevin Magnussen (Challenge), Nicholas latifi (Williams) and Romain Grosjean (Haas).
Trail incidents
Charles Leclerc he was the first racer to provide a smaller entertainment stake. There is a racer in turn 14 Ferrari lost the rear of his car and spun off the track. In contrast to yesterday, this time he stayed on the paved part of the excursion zone, but in doing so he Monachan honestly destroyed the tires.
Also George Russell he wanted to reshape his tires. Racer Williams braked too late in turn number five, but then claims that both front wheels are for a long time blocked. After bypassing the excursion zone, he went back to the track and drove straight back to the pits because his tires were useless.
Lewis Hamilton he handled his tires more gently, but he, too, could not give up short insert for the audience. The current champion is v eighth turn lost the backside of his black-painted silver rifle, but managed to catch it, and yet he could not help but drive briefly through the sandy excursion zone.
Track restrictions
After they are Commissioners at yesterday’s both workouts deleted what 124 lap times, racers complained about these restrictions at a meeting in the evening. The race management reacted and did restriction paths v turns 1 and 4 shifted slightly outward. The white line was no longer authoritative, but the curbs. V bend 15 however, everything remained the same - there was no violation at this place yesterday.
Measure the leadership of the race paid off, because there weren’t that many violations in the third free practice today. Nevertheless, a racer drove his vehicle longer than he should have, and this includes Max Verstappen, to which they deleted one quick lap in between.
