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 Motorsport 
Monday, June 05 2023
Mad Max mauls F1 rivals in practice as drivers drool over awesome track upgrade

Two-time champion Max Verstappen dominated both Friday practice sessions for Red Bull at the Spanish Grand Prix and then praised the changes made to create a faster and more flowing circuit.

Verstappen produced a ‘double top’ with fastest laps in both runs to finish quickest ahead of two-time champion and local hero Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin.

Showing he felt well-adapted to the revised Circuit de Catalunya, which has introduced a faster layout this year, the Dutchman clocked a best lap in one minute and 13.907 seconds, beating Alonso by 0.17 seconds.

Nico Hulkenberg of Haas was third ahead of Perez, Esteban Ocon of Alpine and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who roused his home crowd with some intermittent fast laps.

George Russell was eighth for Mercedes ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and Pierre Gasly in the second Alpine on a day when most teams were evaluating upgrades to their cars.

Australia’s Oscar Piastri spent much of the practice sessions running testing work on aerodynamics and tyres, but jumped from 17th in the first practice to P12 in the latter.

He said: “It felt like a decent Friday on track, I made some good steps forward from FP1 to FP2. I think there’s a bit of work for me to do on the one-lap pace, but our long runs looked reasonably competitive, so all-in-all, we can be pretty happy with today’s running.”

After a near-perfect day at the Circuit de Catalunya, where Verstappen claimed his maiden victory in 2016 and won last year, the 25-year-old Dutchman said the new layout was “more fun to drive” and would encourage overtaking.

“Overall, I think we had a very good day,” said Verstappen, who leads this year’s championship by 39 points ahead of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez.

“The car was in a good window and of course, you try to fine tune a few things here and there but on the short run and long run everything looked quite good.

“From my side, I felt very comfortable in the car looking after the tyres. I still need to look at the lap times of others but it was a good day.”

Asked about the circuit, which has a revised final sector following the removal of a chicane to create faster and more flowing corners, he was enthusiastic.

“It’s been much more fun to drive,” he said.

“In general, F1 cars are better at high speeds so, for me, the last two corners are now much better to drive.

“I tried to follow a few cars, as well, and it seemed to be quite OK there as well — so I was positively surprised for the overtaking.”

His Red Bull teammate Perez was fourth as he sought to shake off a “disastrous” weekend at the Monaco Grand Prix where he crashed in qualifying and failed to score a point.

HAMILTON MOANS ABOUT DIFFICULT DAY

Lewis Hamilton endured a ‘difficult day’ and said more work was needed on his upgraded Mercedes after struggling to 11th place in Friday’s practice at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The seven-time champion said he felt that his revised car was ‘not terrible’ on long runs, but he added that he needed to extract more speed on single laps.

“It’s OK,” he said. “We’re fighting as hard as we can – it’s been a difficult day, in P1 and P2, working to get on top of the tyres and the ‘deg’ – and it so different from last week, of course,” he said.

“The long run pace was not terrible, but we need to work on extracting more on a single lap.” Asked how it felt, he replied: “The car feels like … the car.” He added the revised final sector of the track, at the Circuit de Catalunya, was a big improvement with the removal of the chicane. “The final corners are awesome now,” he said.

“Very fast. I much prefer it to the small chicane that was there, but I haven’t followed anyone there yet, but it’s going to be tough through there for the degradation.

“From today’s pace, it’s been a struggle for me to get into the top ten, but we plan some changes overnight. It’s so close between us all from fifth down to P10 and impressive to see all the improvements by everyone.

“Ocon and Alpine look so good and Aston Martin are up to one-tenth from Red Bull which is so impressive.”

Posted by: AT 01:47 am   |  Permalink   |  Email
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