Lewis Hamilton is clearly ahead of Red Bull

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Mercedes clearly won their first shootout with Red Bull in Turkey. During the first training session in Istanbul (Formula 1 2021 Live in the Ticker), world champion Lewis Hamilton drove the fastest morning time at 1:24.178 minutes and was four tenths of a second faster than his World Cup rival Max Verstappen (+0.425) in the White Red Pee.

With an outside temperature of nearly 20 degrees and much better grip conditions than last year, Hamilton set the first record in the Formula 1 weekend, but he has to take the grid penalty on Sunday: During the session, it was confirmed that Mercedes will change its internal combustion engine car, Whoever does ten starting places will bring a penalty.

His teammate Valtteri Bottas finished fourth (+0.664), behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc (+0.476). Sixth was Carlos Sainz’s second Ferrari (+0.682), which will also be postponed due to the engine change – but until the end of the field.

However, the second white Red Bulls were only found at the end of the top ten: Sergio Perez fell behind Esteban Ocon (6th / Albin), Lando Norris (7th / McLaren), Pierre Gasly (8th / Alpha Tauri) and Fernando Alonso (9th). /Alpine) was only in tenth place (+1.281) and was again more than eight tenths of a second slower than his teammate Verstappen.

W: Even his first long run on soft tyres was in Hamilton’s favour this weekend.

For Sebastian Vettel, things weren’t going well in the morning. Although the Aston Martin driver was half a second faster than his teammate Lance Stroll, he ended up in 13th place, trailing by more than 1.6 seconds.

Incidentally, the German was one of five drivers who were allowed to try out a new prototype glove in Turkey that is supposed to provide better protection against heat. Hamilton, Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell were also selected for this purpose.

At the end of the field, Mick Schumacher was again four tenths of a second faster than his teammate Nikita Maspin, but Haas once again only took the last two places. Accumulation: 2.4 and 2.8 seconds.

The second free F1 practice in Istanbul begins at 2pm CST (which can, of course, be followed live in our session bar again).