The first day of free practice of the Formula 1 World Championship 2021 begins in the sign of Red Bull and of Max Verstappen that prints the best times in FP1 and FP2 by booking, at the moment, tomorrow’s pole. Good signs, at least on paper and on the track from the Ferrari. In apparent difficulty the Mercedes. The silver arrows, unbeatable at least on paper, from the hybrid era, suffered this first Friday of Gran premio del baharain. Above all it seemed to be in crisis Valtteri Bottas. His audio during rehearsals went viral.
Mercedes, what’s going on?
Who knows if it will be another bluff of the silver arrows. In the first free practice session Max Verstappen he trimmed Valtteri three tenths Bottas, second, and over half a second to Lewis Hamilton, further back. The music hasn’t changed much in FP2. The seven-time world champion he had to settle for the third time (+0.235) while Bottas did not go beyond the fifth time, 371 thousandths behind the flying Dutchman’s Red Bull.
Bottas’ radio team: “Unrivaled Mercedes”
It hardly seemed possible that a Mercedes driver, for seven years now the absolute dominator of F1, complained so openly about the behavior of the German cars. And instead Valtteri Bottas he defined “undriveable” the Mercedes at the end of the second free, through a hard vent via radio with i box.
A concept that the Finnish “lumberjack” tried to sweeten in post free interviews: “The car at times seemed undriveable. It’s a big problem, but it’s only Friday and it’s a day dedicated to finding the correct set-up ”.
The same Toto Wolff, team principal of the silver arrows admitted some problems of the W12: “We suffer from regulation changes more than Red Bull. It is more difficult for us to recover some of the lost downforce. Maybe we will have a more competitive World Championship than in the last two years, like in 2018 where we had to fight hard with Ferrari, ”he told Sky Sport F1.
SPORTS 26-03-2021 21:13
Source: Ansa – – .
