Many questions about longruns remain unanswered after Friday

The drivers did not have an easy first day on the circuit of Portimao. Due to Pierre Gasly's burning AlphaTauri and the crash between Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll, the drivers had a very disrupted FP2.

Tricky Friday

According to the analysis by Auto, Motor und Sport, a lot of questions about the longruns remain unanswered. Also, the teams had to drive the first half hour of the second practice session on prototype rubber that Pirelli wants to use in 2021, giving teams less data on the current tyres.

Nevertheless, a number of teams have made an attempt to drive a short race simulation. Mercedes did one with the softest tyres and Red Bull Racing did a short simulation on the medium tyre. In spite of the use of data, Mercedes is again leading the pace in Portugal.

Short race simulations

Valtteri Bottas did two short simulations of four laps each on the same set of soft tyres and ended up with an average time of 1:21.753, making him the fastest of the day. Just behind him, his team mate Lewis Hamilton set a time of 1:21.887 on the same tyre, but drove as many as eight laps in one go.

Max Verstappen is the only driver to have tried a longrun on the medium tyres. After seven laps he set an average time of 1:22.155, which makes him just about slower than Hamilton.

New tyres for 2021

Bottas also led the timesheets on Pirelli's 2021 tyres. After nine lap he recorded a time of 1:21.903 on average, which was slightly faster than Max Verstappen. Hamilton drove an average of 1:22.411 and is therefore fourth on the test tyres.

Ferrari has come up with upgrades to Portugal and for now they seem to work. Ferrari showed good speed on Friday and competed at the top of the midfield over one lap. Charles Leclerc drove an average time of 1:22.315 on the test tyres, making him faster than Hamilton.