Bottas leads the Portuguese GP followed by the Red Bulls | FP1

Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen traded places at the top of the charts throughout FP1, but it was Bottas who ended up narrowly fastest in the first session of the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix.

Bottas equipped his W12 with soft tyres with 20 minutes remaining and set the benchmark time, improving to an eventual fastest lap of 1m19.648s. Verstappen, who arrived at Portimao with an upgraded RB16B car, developed a flat spot on his tyre late in the session and said his car was "impossible to drive" thanks to the vibrations. Despite that, the Dutchman finished just 0.025s off Bottas on soft tyres.

Bottas at Portuguese GP

Lewis Hamilton finished fifth, three-tenths down by the chequered flag on the same C3 soft compounds. The reigning champion was beaten by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc (P4) by under a tenth of a second.

That left Red Bull's Sergio Perez, who ran an aero rake early in the session – possible testing the team's new parts – in third place, 0.198s off Bottas' pace.

Fernando Alonso was the only driver to begin the session on softs – rivals waiting for the 30-minute mark to do so – and Alpine's two-time champion unusually set his fastest lap on hard tyres to go 14th overall, behind AlphaTauri's rookie Yuki Tsunoda.

2020 Formula 2 Championship runner-up Callum Ilott replaced Antonio Giovinazzi at Alfa Romeo for FP1. Ilott, who is now Alfa Romeo's official reserve driver, finished 17th in his FP1 debut. Kimi Raikkonen in the other Alfa Romeo was just four-tenths faster and finished 15th, the two split by Vettel.

Standings:-

2021 F1 PORTUGUESE GRAND PRIX - FREE PRACTICE RESULTS (1)
POS	DRIVER	NAT.	TEAM	TIME
1	Valtteri Bottas	FIN	Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team	1m19.648s
2	Max Verstappen	NED	Red Bull Racing	1m19.673s
3	Sergio Perez	MEX	Red Bull Racing	1m19.846s
4	Charles Leclerc	MON	Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow	1m19.884s
5	Lewis Hamilton	GBR	Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team	1m19.967s
6	Pierre Gasly	FRA	Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda	1m20.444s
7	George Russell	GBR	Williams Racing	1m20.529s
8	Lando Norris	GBR	McLaren F1 Team	1m20.635s
9	Carlos Sainz	ESP	Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow	1m20.680s
10	Esteban Ocon	FRA	Alpine F1 Team	1m20.800s
11	Lance Stroll	CAN	Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team	1m20.894s
12	Daniel Ricciardo	AUS	McLaren F1 Team	1m20.995s
13	Yuki Tsunoda	JPN	Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda	1m21.090s
14	Fernando Alonso	ESP	Alpine F1 Team	1m21.303s
15	Kimi Raikkonen	FIN	Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen	1m21.381s
16	Sebastian Vettel	GER	Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team	1m21.405s
17	Callum Ilott	GBR	Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen	1m21.806s
18	Mick Schumacher	GER	Uralkali Haas F1 Team	1m21.939s
19	Nicholas Latifi	CAN	Williams Racing	1m22.293s
20	Nikita Mazepin	RUS	Uralkali Haas F1 Team	1m22.224s

Source - Crash.net

-by Amaan Attar