Bottas fastest day in Portimao – Vettel as “parking criminal”

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time of the day in training Friday for the Portuguese Grand Prix, thus shunning the champions for the championship. Already in the first two units with light winds in the morning, the last weakened World Vice Champion led the first lap in 1: 19.648 minutes.

The bottom line is that Finn was 25 thousandths of a second ahead of Red Bull superstar Max Verstappen from Holland. World record champion Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain) in second Mercedes was the only one of the top three drivers to make a time improvement in the afternoon session with some severe storms. In the general account, the World Championship leader was 0.189 seconds less than Bottas.

Before the third race of the season on Sunday (4pm live on Sky) Defending champions Hamilton top the overall standings, just one point adrift of Verstappen. Due to problems at Mercedes in the first two World Championship races, the team brought a number of new components for the car to the Algarve. Hamilton will aim to finish 100th in his first Formula 1 spot in the qualifiers on Saturday.

Sebastian Vettel delivered a very unusual and hilarious moment. In the middle of training, he suddenly drove into a McLaren garage in place of an Aston Martin crew. “I was wondering why there was no one there,” the 33-year-old said, amusing, to his new employer.

Confused my curiosity! Vettel stands in the wrong square

After two disappointing races, the German is still waiting for his first points for Aston Martin. In the inaugural training, several courses were canceled due to rule violations.