Sochi, FP1: Räikkönen quickest in opening practice session for Russian Grand Prix

Like Hamilton, Vettel had a scrappy session

By Franck Drui

28 April 2017 - 11:35
Sochi, FP1: Räikkönen quickest in (...)

Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen set the pace in the opening practice session for this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix, beating Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas by 0.045 at the Sochi Autodrom. Bottas’ team-mate Lewis Hamilton was third, more than half a second off the pace.

After running on soft tyres early on, Räikkönen’s time of 1:36.074 came midway through the session, with the Finn bolting on a set of supersofts to better the earlier efforts of the Mercedes drivers on the same compounds.

Hamilton had made the early running but it was Bottas who best exploited the red-banded rubber for Mercedes. While Hamilton had a ragged session that included a number of off-track moments Bottas steered his W08 to a time of 1:36.119. Hamilton ended the session 0.562 behind his team-mate.

Fourth place on the timesheet went to Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, who jumped ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel late in the session with a supersoft time of 1:37.174.

Like Hamilton, Vettel had a scrappy session, with a spin at Turn 16 midway through the 90 minutes being the most lurid of a number of moments where the German explored the outer limits of grip on the smooth and rarely used surface

Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull also struggled for grip, running off track at one point, though the Australian eventually finished sixth ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez.

The Mexican ended the session four places and almost six tenths of a second clear of team-mate Esteban Ocon. The Frenchman brought out the red flags, too, when his car’s engine cover became dislodged at Turn 2.

Eighth and ninth places in the session were taken by the Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll with the Brazilian edging the Canadian by just over four hundredths of a second.

Pos.DriverTeamTimeLaps
01 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:36.074 19
02 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes AMG 1:36.119 24
03 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes AMG 1:36.681 23
04 Max Verstappen Red Bull Tag Heuer 1:37.174 19
05 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:37.230 19
06 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Tag Heuer 1:37.290 19
07 Sergio Perez Force India Mercedes 1:37.457 29
08 Felipe Massa Williams Mercedes 1:37.900 29
09 Lance Stroll Williams Mercedes 1:37.944 30
10 Esteban Ocon Force India Mercedes 1:38.065 28
11 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso Renault 1:38.496 17
12 Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 1:38.747 23
13 Fernando Alonso McLaren Honda 1:38.813 16
14 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso Renault 1:38.976 17
15 Jolyon Palmer Renault F1 1:39.158 16
16 Romain Grosjean Haas Ferrari 1:39.533 17
17 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren Honda 1:39.541 19
18 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber Ferrari 1:39.731 21
19 Marcus Ericsson Sauber Ferrari 1:40.079 20
20 Sergey Sirotkin Renault F1 -:—.--- 2

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