© Getty ImagesFree Practice Update - Emilia Romagna Grand Prix 2021Round two gets underway at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola.
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It's only the fourth time the Team have been to the iconic Imola circuit and they'll be looking to carry on where they left off from in Sakhir, following Max's P2 and Sergio's P5.
Being a proper, old-school track, Imola’s corners and chicanes have names rather than numbers. In sequence, they are Tamburello, Villeneuve, Tosa, Piratella, Acque Minerali, Variante Alta and Rivazza. The big change, which F1 experienced last year, is that the Variante Bassa has been removed, and it’s a straight run from Rivazza all the way to Tamburello (the chicane is still there for bike races).
Imola Pre-Race Stats© Red Bull Racing Honda
Friday's practice got up and running, with a few incidents taking place during the hour session for Free Practice One.
With 20 minutes left of the session Checo picked up some damage and his FP1 was over. The session was red flagged to recover Checo's RB16B and Esteban Ocon's Alpine. With twelve minutes to go the session was restarted.
After the chequered flag had flown and with drivers on their final flying lap, Haas' Nikita Mazepin crashed into the wall on the exit of Rivazza 2 and brought out a second red flag of the session and ending the morning's running.
Max finished FP1 in P3 with a best time of 1:16.622 and managed 21 laps. Checo was P16 with a 1:18.228, with the Mexican completing 15 laps.
Friday afternoon's Free Practice Two wasn't as good for Max when his RB16B encountered a problem early on in the session on the start finish straight and was forced to pull over, putting an end to his afternoon.
Checo finished FP2 in P6 with his best time a 1:16.411. He managed a total of 25 laps. Max only managed 5 laps before pulling over, this however saw him finish P14 with a 1:16.999.
Saturday morning's final practice session, Free Practice Three, was relatively uneventful compared to Friday's sessions. Max finished in P1 with a 1:14.958. The Dutchman racked up 18 laps. Checo came back in P4 posting a 1:15.551. He completed 18 laps.
The race pace seems to be strong and the car felt good, hopefully we can pull it all together in qualifying tomorrow.
“It was definitely good to get a decent amount of laps in the second session today and to get a feel for the car on a different track. The track conditions are obviously very different here compared to Bahrain so I’m just learning how the car behaves on different tracks. We’ve learnt a lot today as a Team and for every lap I do, I learn a few tricks here and there. The race pace seems to be strong and the car felt good, hopefully we can pull it all together in qualifying tomorrow. With the incident this morning, we didn’t have radio so I think there was a miscommunication through there and I think it was just bad timing.”
I don’t think missing running in FP2 is the end of the world as we know what we need to do tomorrow.
“I like Italy. The food is good and I enjoy being here but we don’t seem to have been that lucky with the driving here recently, so hopefully that will change. I had a driveshaft issue so we had to stop the car in FP2 and it wasn’t the easiest to get the car back to the pits so I couldn’t get back out on track. The car felt alright in FP1 and it is difficult to say how the second session would have been but we will still be able to look at the data and see what we can do better for tomorrow in terms of balance. Of course it would have been better to have the session but I don’t think missing running in FP2 is the end of the world as we know what we need to do tomorrow. We just have to focus on ourselves and make sure we get the best out of our package.”
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9. | 10. | … | 15 |
| Valtteri Bottas | Lewis Hamilton | Max Verstappen | Charles Leclerc | Pierre Gasly | Carlos Sainz | Fernando Alonso | Lance Stroll | Nicholas Latifi | Daniel Ricciardo | … | Sergio Pérez |
| Mercedes | Mercedes | Red Bull Racing Honda | Ferrari | AlphaTauri | Ferrari | Alpine | Aston Martin | Williams | McLaren | … | Red Bull Racing Honda |
| 1.16.564 | 1.16.605 | 1.16.622 | 1.16.796 | 1.16.888 | 1.16.888 | 1.17.457 | 1.17.489 | 1.17.739 | 1.17.769 | … | 1.18.228 |
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9. | 10. | … | 14. |
| Valtteri Bottas | Lewis Hamilton | Pierre Gasly | Carlos Sainz | Charles Leclerc | Sergio Pérez | Yuki Tsundoa | Lando Norris | Antonio Giovinazzi | Lance Stroll | … | Max Verstappen |
| Mercedes | Mercedes | AlphaTauri | Ferrari | Ferrari | Red Bull Racing Honda | AlphaTauri | McLaren | Alfa Romeo | Aston Martin | … | Red Bull Racing Honda |
| 1.15.551 | 1.15.561 | 1.15.629 | 1.15.834 | 1.16.371 | 1.16.411 | 1.16.419 | 1.16.485 | 1.16.513 | 1.16.737 | … | 1.16.999 |
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9. | 10. |
| Max Verstappen | Lando Norris | Lewis Hamilton | Sergio Pérez | Charles Leclerc | Pierre Gasly | Carlos Sainz | Valtteri Bottas | Fernando Alonso | Esteban Ocon |
| Red Bull Racing Honda | McLaren | Mercedes | Red Bull Racing Honda | Ferrari | AlphaTauri | Ferrari | Mercedes | Alpine | Alpine |
| 1.14.958 | 1.15.414 | 1.15.515 | 1.15.551 | 1.15.738 | 1.15.890 | 1.15.908 | 1.15.908 | 1.16.186 | 1.16.228 |
