VALTTERI SETS THE FASTEST TIME FINISHING IN P1 DURING FRIDAY'S FREE PRACTICE IN SHANGHAI
Bottas finishes 0.027 ahead of Vettel and two tenths ahead of Verstappen free pratise two of the Chinese Grand Prix
Two races into the 2019 season, the championship leader Bottas posted a best time of 1:33.330 placing his Silver Arrow just 0.027s ahead of Vettel's Ferrari and two tenths ahead of Verstappen following a error at the final corner.
Both Lewis Hamilton & Charles Leclerc failed to achieve a clean lap with Hamilton finishing in P4 and Leclerc P7.
Nico Hulkenberg set Renault up for a good start ahead of tomorrow qualifying finishing fifth just slightly ahead of McLaren's Carlos Sainz's.
Valtteri Bottas The day ended up ok, we made it to the top of the time sheets, but it is always very difficult to find a good balance through an entire lap on this track. We got there step by step and the car was feeling ok in the end, but it's only Friday and it's the next two days that count. Ferrari still seem to be quicker than us on the straights, whereas we were better in most corners in FP2. We still have room for improvement, but we know the others are going to work hard on their cars as well, so we're going to have to wait and how much we can improve in relation to them. The wind is forecasted to change direction over the next two days which can make things really tricky as we saw in Bahrain two weeks ago, so that's going to make things interesting.
Lewis Hamilton It was a relatively straightforward day, we got through our programme ok. It was quite cold out there, which makes it difficult for the tyres. I was struggling with the car today, so we've got work to do, particularly on my side as Valtteri looked much more comfortable in the car. We're going to work hard tonight to find some tweaks and hopefully come back stronger tomorrow; the car has the pace in it to compete at the front, we just need to find the right set-up. It is nice to see how close it is between us, Red Bull and Ferrari. As we expected, the Ferrari's still look quicker on the straights, but overall it's very close between the top cars and I anticipate that it is going to be the same tomorrow.
