Free Practice 1
Alex Albon, newly re-signed at Red Bull for 2020, was the quickest in the first practice session ahead of Sunday’s Brazilian grand prix.
It was a erratic session for Albon as he also ended the morning’s wet running in the barrier on the exit of Jun Cao. The opening practice session of the weekend was dampened, literally in this case, by a downpour. It didn’t deter cars from venturing out on the famed Interlagos circuit though. The rest of the weekend is expected to be dry but various teams took the opportunity to run checks and constant-speed aero tests.
Valtteri Bottas was second quickest for Mercedes while Seb Vettel and Charles Leclerc rounded out the top five for Ferrari. Leclerc has incurred a ten place grid penalty for Sunday’s race after fitting a new internal combustion engine to his car.
Towards the end of FP1 several drivers declared the circuit nearly ready for slick tyres. However, it was just out of the window for running on slicks as Daniil Kvyat, Max Verstappen, and as previously mentioned, Alex Albon all found out.
FP1 CLASSIFICATION
Mixed conditions, and a mixed morning for Alex Albon, as he ends up at the top of the page, but in the barrier#BrazilGP 🇧🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/A2joxcwemn
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 15, 2019
Free Practice 2
With improved conditions for FP2 teams were eager to get out and get some laps in dry conditions. This was not the case for Robert Kubica who opened the session by crashing at T3 in the early stages of the session. After having to sit out of FP1 to make way for Nicolas Latifi, he had to sit out FP2 as well.
The session, however, belonged the Ferrari’s with Vettel topping the time sheets with a 1:09.217 and Leclerc just 0.021s off the German as second fastest. Vettel, who began the session on the medium tyres, was fastest on the harder compound as well. Ferrari are once again looking strong on one lap pace. Their race pace has them wanting.
Verstappen was third fastest for Red Bull 0.134s off Vettel’s benchmark. The Dutchman did not seem too concerned saying that the car was working well and that he feels they will be stronger in the race.
The Mercedes pair were fourth and fifth with Bottas ahead of Hamilton who was a little more of the pace than his Finnish team mate.
A surprise sixth fastest was the Haas of Kevin Magnussen ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo in seventh and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen in eight.
A tough session for Albon saw him ninth fastest with Carlos Sainz in the McLaren rounding out the top 10.
It was a session to forget for the Toro Rosso team as both their cars retired from the session with engine issues. Pierre Gasly’s engine gave up the ghost 20 minutes from the end of the session while Daniil Kvyat’s engine gave up with around 5 minutes left in the session. That brought a premature end to FP2.
FP2 CLASSIFICATION: A good session for @ScuderiaFerrari #BrazilGP 🇧🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/1oU9q9bNae
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 15, 2019
