Red Bull Racing‘s Daniel Ricciardo finished on top of the time charts at the German GP at the Hockenheim circuit on Friday. Lewis Hamilton was a mere 0.004s behind him. Max Verstappen was third on the timesheets, a further 0.189s behind his teammate Ricciardo.
Daniel Ricciardo Edges Lewis Hamilton In FP1
The sunny 90-minute long free practice session started under clear skies. The air temperature was 28 degrees C, and the track temperature was 41 degrees C. The Pirelli tire choice at this race is the white-striped medium tire, yellow-striped soft tire, and the purple-striped ultrasoft tire.
The main takeaways from this session were:
- Less than three-tenths separated the first four cars.
- Most of the teams, including the top squads, wore the soft tire and the ultrasoft. Also, the medium tire made its appearance in the early stages of the session.
- Daniel Ricciardo will suffer a grid penalty for Sunday’s race for utilizing new Power Unit elements and will start at the back of the grid.
- Many drivers elected to test the long run pace, as preparation for race day.
- McLaren‘s Stoffel Vandoorne missed most of the session and finished last. Fernando Alonso finished twelveth.
- Canadian Nicholas Latifi drove Esteban Ocon‘s Force India, while Italian Antonio Giovinazzi took Marcus Ericsson‘s seat at Sauber in the morning session.
- The top three teams, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull, worked on its race simulations in the last part of the practice session.
- Ricciardo led the way in a practice session for the third time this season.
The Last Word
Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull are pretty close in the early stages of the weekend. The first practice session was generally incident-free, Giovinazzi’s Sauber had the only issue when the engine cover blew off the car after exiting the pits.
Results of Free Practice 1
A strong session for Red Bull in Hockenheim
With Hamilton just a whisker off the top spot#GermanGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/Ho8UsUN90e
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 20, 2018
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