Valtteri Bottas was fastest in Friday morning's first free practice session, the Mercedes driver edging the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc by a small margin. Lewis Hamilton concluded his morning P4 after a relatively muted session while Haas' Romain Grosjean and McMLaren Carlos Sainz rounded off the top six. For all teams F1's return to Europe after their four-race opening stint abroad is synonymous with upgrades. From engine updates for Ferrari and Renault to aero changes for the entire grid, everyone was eager to validate the evolutions in the first practice session of the day. After the usual series of routine installation laps, Red Bull's Pierre Gasly was the first driver to dare put a time on the board, the Frenchman undertaking a long run on hard tyres with a best lap in 1m21.016s. However, it was Haas' Romain Grosjean who was the early pace setter while Lewis Hamilton was the last man to take to the track, the Mercedes driver heading out onto the Circuit de Catalunya 20 minutes into the session. After a few attempts from Leclerc and Vettel to overhaul Grosjean at the top of the timesheet, Valtteri Bottas lowered the benchmark time to 1m19.734s. Thirty minutes in, the Ferrari pair really started to get going, with Leclerc and Vettel trading places at the top, the German temporarily settling the Scuderia's intra-team score with a 1.18.066s that edged Leclerc by 0.126s. But an effort by Bottas on Pirelli's red soft tyre yielded the first sub 1.18 lap of the day. Meanwhile, Hamilton endured a rather subdued session until he bolted on a set of softs that sprung him to P4, 0.624s behind Bottas. Overall, with the exception of a few drivers running wide on occasion and a visit to the kitty litter by Grosjean, it was a drama-free morning, with short runs the norm in the closing stages of FP1. There was however an alert in the Red Bull garage where Max Verstappen's RB15 was seen leaking puddles of oil, signaling a premature end to the Dutchman's session, with only 14 laps completed. Not to be outdone by Red Bull's issues, Bottas' car was also seen dripping oil in the Silver Arrows team's garage! As everyone was prepping to wind down the morning and head to lunch, Racing Point's Lance Stroll was seen stranded in the barriers at Turn 9, the Canadian - fortunately unscathed - informing his team over the radio that he had "clipped the grass on entry", inflicting at first glance some pretty heavy damage to the front left suspension of his RP19. The mishap brought out the red flag with only a minute left on the clock. Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter<doc-sep>Barcelona FP1: Bottas ahead with Ferrari in the hunt Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas topped the timing screens at the end of the first free practice of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, edging both Ferrari’s in the 90-minutes session which ended when Lance Stroll crashed his Racing Point in Turn 9. It was also a morning in which Honda power did not ‘show up’ and their star driver Max Verstappen spent half the time in the Red Bull pit garage with issues. Bottas set a best lap time of 1:17.951 which was good enough for the top time of the morning session, a tenth faster than the next best and six tenths up on his teammate Lewis Hamilton in fourth. Ferrari were the meat in the Silver Arrows sandwich with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc ending second and third respectively. The gap between them about a tenth of a second. The Italian team have a fast-tracked an update on their power unit for this weekend but reports indicate that they did not run the new package in FP1. Romain Grosjean made good use of a “nearly all new car” to clock the fifth best time, a tad under a second shy of the top time suggesting impressive progress by Haas with their second spec car. In the sister car, Kevin Magnussen ran the older-spec chassis as a deliberate back-to-back test. He ended the session in seventh albeit three tenths down on his teammate. The American team is sure to bolt the new bits onto the Dane’s car for the afternoon session. Local hero Carlos Sainz was sixth in the McLaren, fastest of the Renault quartet but 1.2 seconds down on the benchmark pace, but nine-tenths up on teammate Lando Norris down in 16th. Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly was fastest of the Honda-powered posse but a massive 1.3 seconds off Bottas’ effort. Daniil Kvyat in the Toro Rosso was ninth, under a tenth of a second down on the Frenchman. Alex Albon was 15th, seven tenths down on his teammate. Coupled to Verstappen’s limited running, this is not the kind of start to the weekend that the energy drinks organisation was hoping for, unless Honda have a plan of course. Underachieving again were the Renault pair with Nico Hulkenberg in tenth and Daniel Ricciardo ninth but 1.5 seconds adrift of the pace. McLaren confirmed during the session that both cars were running the upgraded Renault PU, while the works team confirmed that only Ricciardo used the updated engine in FP1.<doc-sep>First Name Last Name We will use the details you have shared to manage your registration. You agree to the processing, storage, sharing and use of this information for the purpose of managing your registration as described in our Privacy Policy. Would you like to receive The WeekDay email newsletter? We will use the details you have shared to manage your newsletter subscription. You agree to the processing, storage, sharing and use of this information for the purpose of managing your subscription as described in our Privacy Policy. We will use the information you have shared for carefully considered and specific purposes, where we believe we have a legitimate case to do so, for example to send you communications about similar products and services we offer. You can find out more about our legitimate interest activity in our privacy policy. If you wish to object to the use of your data in this way, please tick here. ‘We’ includes The Week and other Dennis Group brands as detailed here<doc-sep>The Mercedes driver traded times with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel before establishing himself at the head of the order with two laps good enough to end the session quickest. Bottas was left out of the car in the final half hour, though, as Mercedes stripped down his W10 to understand what was initially described as a hydraulic problem. Mercedes determined an oil leak had caused a precautionary engine shutdown, which it is investigating the cause of. The second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton ended FP1 fourth fastest, half a second adrift after complaining of "terrible" tyre preparation. Vettel set the early pace on soft tyres and topped the times at the midway stage of the session on a 1m18.407s. Bottas was more than a second slower at this point but had only run the medium tyres, and immediately usurped Vettel once he bolted on softs with just over half an hour of the session left. He initially set a 1m17.990s, the first sub-1m18s lap of the day, and then improved on the same set of tyres after a cool-down lap to end up on a 1m17.951s. No other driver set a 1m17s lap, although both Ferraris finished within two tenths of Bottas. Leclerc initially moved himself ahead of Vettel thanks to a 1m18.172s lap and his teammate botching his first flier during the second set of runs. Vettel caught traffic in the final sector and ran wide, dipping his left wheels into the gravel, as he cleared a slower car on the outside exiting the long uphill Turn 12 right-hander. However, after a cool-down lap, Vettel was able to push again and re-established himself as the lead Ferrari on a 1m18.066s. Hamilton's session was understated, and included him falling to the foot of the times briefly after failing to set a competitive effort on medium tyres in the first half of FP1. He bemoaned his rear tyres being "done" after a mediocre flying lap on softs that left him 0.6s slower than Bottas. The Red Bulls did not feature in their usual position between Mercedes, Ferrari and the rest of the field after avoiding using soft tyres. Pierre Gasly was the lead Red Bull representative in eighth, 1.3s off the pace, while Max Verstappen was only 12th and 0.6s slower. Like Bottas, Verstappen ended his session early as Red Bull assessed an unknown problem on his RB15. Red Bull's tyre strategy opened the door for Romain Grosjean to end FP1 fifth fastest as Haas seeks to respond to its poor start to the season at a more favourable circuit. Grosjean beat the McLaren of Carlos Sainz to best-of-the-rest honours in first practice by 0.2s. Kevin Magnussen was 0.025s slower than Sainz in the second Haas, while behind Gasly the top 10 was completed by Daniil Kvyat's Toro Rosso and Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg. Beyond a minor early run-in between Bottas and Verstappen, who caught the Mercedes while on a flying lap and gesticulated at the points leader, the session was almost completed without major incident. That was until Lance Stroll crashed his Racing Point with just over a minute left to run. Stroll had a wobble on the entry to Turn 9 and locked up a front wheel as he corrected it, which sent him straight on and into the barriers nose first. He emerged unharmed, although the front of his car picked up a significant damage, and the session ended under red flags.<doc-sep>
Spanish Grand Prix – Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas has gone quickest in opening practice at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya in Spain. The Finnish driver clocked a 1:17.951 on the Soft compound tyre during Friday’s opening practice session in Barcelona. This placed him just 0.115 clear of the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel on the same tyre compound. Charles Leclerc was a further tenth behind, with a 1:18.172 on the Soft tyre, and he was almost half a second clear of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. The reigning Champion didn’t appear to be enjoying the Softs, as he radioed in after his flying lap on them to say that he felt the traction was poor and that the tyres were ‘already done’. It was Romain Grosjean who was best of the rest. The Haas driver was P5 and almost a second behind the front, with the team bringing updates to this race to try rectifying their ongoing tyre issues. He was 0.3 clear of the McLaren of Carlos Sainz. Haas underlined their potential with Kevin Magnussen by getting the Dane into P7. His best time of 1:19.180 was almost 0.3 behind his teammate, but a tenth clear of the lead Red Bull of Pierre Gasly. The other RBR of Max Verstappen spent the second half of the session up on stands in the garage with an apparent oil leak. He finished the session in P12. Daniil Kvyat was P9 for Toro Rosso, with Nico Hulkenberg leading the Renault charge in P10. The pair were separated by 0.086 seconds. Daniel Ricciardo was P11 in the second Renault – the French team are yet to fit their cars with their new Spec 2 power units, which are thus expected to be fitted for FP3 onwards as the team confirmed they intend to use it for the race weekend. Lance Stroll finished P13 for Racing Point, although brought out the red flags right at the end of the session as he crashed at Turn 7. Touching the grass on approach to the corner, his correction meant he ran out of room before the gravel trap and he was powerless to stop before hitting the barrier. He was uninjured and clambered clear; his car should be OK to run in FP2. Antonio Giovinazzi was the lead Alfa Romeo with P14, two seconds from the front, just 0.009 clear of Alex Albon’s Toro Rosso. Lando Norris was P16 in the second McLaren, with Sergio Perez P17 in the second Racing Point. Kimi Raikkonen was P18 for Alfa, with the two Williams drivers of Robert Kubica and George Russell rounding out the order.