Bottas tops opening F1 practice for Russian GP

Mercedes was on top for opening practice for the Russian GP at Sochi as one might expect – but not with a 1-2. The Finn, on soft red tires, finished on top by a comfortable half a second from The Renault of Danial Ricciardo, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen not that much further back.

As for Lewis Hamilton, he ended up down in 19th place.  Hamilton didn’t manage to set a clean flying lap on his softs, and flat spotted his pair, so he sits uncharacteristically down in P19 as a result.

There were two crashes – Carlos Sainz Jr. in the McLaren and Nick Latifi for Williams. Both lost the rear and slammed into the barriers but while the Spaniard was able to limp back to the pits under his own steam, Latifi wasn’t so fortunate and brought out the red flags as his car was recovered. That brought their sessions to a premature end – expect to see plenty of running from both drivers in FP2 to make up for lost time.

The Ferraris were again way off the pace, Sebastian Vettel 1.4s back in 9th and Charles Leclerc 1.973s back in 11th.

Practice 1 Results