Racing driver Hamilton sets the pace in Russian practice
SOCHI (Reuters) - Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton led the way as Mercedes ended the first day of Russian Grand Prix practice with a dominant one-two on the timesheets while rivals Ferrari struggled.
The Briton, 40 points clear of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel with six races remaining, lapped Sochi’s 5.8 km Olympic Park circuit with a best time of one minute 33.385 seconds on the hypersoft tyres.
“Sochi has been one of the weaker circuits for me in the past, particularly last year,” said Hamilton. “So I’ve done a lot of work to understand the balance and see where I can improve to try and rectify this.
“Today has been good in that sense.”
Vettel ended up only fifth-fastest, in 1:33.928, and behind the two Red Bulls driven by Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo. His Finnish team mate Kimi Raikkonen was sixth.
The German had been fastest in the morning with a best time of 1:34.488, also on hypersoft tyres, with Hamilton third on the slower softs.
Vettel is running out of time to rein in Hamilton, who has seven victories to his name this season, including four of the last five and Friday did not give him much to smile about.
“Some Fridays are good, some aren’t and this one hasn’t been great for us. We are not where we want to be yet and we’ve got some catching-up to do,” said the Ferrari driver.
“Today it was difficult to put the laps together. We went through the tyres too fast, especially the front left, and struggled a bit with both the fast laps and with fuel on board,” he added.
Mercedes have won every Russian Grand Prix since the first in 2014, with Hamilton twice victorious and team mate Valtteri Bottas winning last year after now-retired Nico Rosberg in 2016, and can count on upgrades for Sunday’s race.