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BREAKING: Bottas P1 ahead of Hamilton in FP2 at Russian GP!

BREAKING: Bottas P1 ahead of Hamilton in FP2 at Russian GP!

25-09-2020 14:04 Last update: 14:34
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Louis Shaw

Editor

Valtteri Bottas continued his perfect record at the Russian Grand Prix this weekend by topping the timesheet in FP2. The Mercedes driver set a 1.33.519 to take the top spot ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo who impressed again, coming in P3. 

Bottas has had a good history in practice sessions and finished top of FP1 at the Sochi Autodrom. Ricciardo has also looked good, coming in P2 in FP1 and backing that up with an impressive P3 in FP2 as well.

It was a largely uneventful session with the biggest news being the official confirmation that Stefano Domenicali will take up the role of president and CEO from January 2021 with Chase Carey becoming non-executive chairman.

Turns 13 and 14 caught a number of drivers out with Stroll, Hamilton, Verstappen and others all having lock-ups and slides at that section of the track. 

The teams chose to go out on the harder compounds at the beginning of the session. Bottas was initially fastest on the hard tyre but was surpassed by Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo on the medium shortly afterwards.

Bottas put the medium rubber on and was less than a tenth slower than his teammate on the medium. Behind that, the Red Bulls on the medium band did not match Ricciardo's time.

Mercedes then chose to go out on the soft tyre. Hamilton was on his way to an incredibly fast time but made a mistake and left the track in the final sector. This allowed Bottas to take the lead with a time of 1:33.519, more than two tenths faster than Hamilton's previous time.

Even during the first runs on that soft compound, Verstappen was unable to stay ahead of the midfield. His lap was only good enough for fifth place behind Ricciardo and Perez and a second and a half behind Bottas.

Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz were also faster than Verstappen later on in the session. The RB16 isn't doing very well on this track, as was evident when the Dutchman spun in an attempt to improve his time. 

Teams then chose to turn their attention to longer runs and the timesheet did not change much but valuable data was harvested ahead of the business end of the weekend.