F1 News

Qualifying results: Bottas 0.007 seconds faster than Hamilton, Sainz beats Leclerc

1 May 2021 at 17:21
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  • GPblog.com

Valtteri Bottas was ultimately the fastest during qualifying for the Portuguese Grand Prix. The Finn will start from the front row of the grid together with teammate Lewis Hamilton on Sunday. But the two Red Bull Racing drivers will be right behind the seven-time world champions. 

Lost time for Verstappen

Verstappen was pushing during Q3 but he ran wide at turn four. His lap time was deleted for exceeding track limits. He then suffered from traffic and was unable to set the time again. As a result, he will start third and teammate Sergio Perez will be next to him on the second row of the grid.

Carlos Sainz is best of the rest and will start fifth. This is the first time the Ferrari driver has beaten teammate Charles Leclerc in qualifying this year. The Monegasque will start from eighth.

Happy faces

Esteban Ocon, Sebastian Vettel and George Russell will all be pleased with Saturday's results. Ocon will start from a neat sixth spot for Alpine, while Vettel reached Q3 for the first time in 15 races. This was at the expense of Russell, who narrowly missed the final session, the Briton starting eleventh.