Ferrari led the way in the first practice session at the Hockenheimring where the top three teams were separated by just three-tenths of a second.
Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc ran on soft tyres throughout the opening 90-minute session. Vettel set the first benchmark time of the weekend, lapping the Hockenheimring in 1’14.013 as track temperatures reached 47C on what is expected to be the hottest day of the weekend.Leclerc was a quarter of a second off his team mate’s pace, with two rival cars very close behind. Lewis Hamilton set the third-quickest time, a mere 15 thousandths of a second faster than Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.
Valtteri Bottas put the other Mercedes in the top five but skidded into the gravel with a minute to go in the session. He went off in the Motodrom session in a manner not unlike Vettel’s race-ending crash last year, but managed to avoid contact with the barrier and rejoined the circuit. Pierre Gasly completed the usual top six.
Romain Grosjean gave a further sign that Haas’s Australia-spec car is faster than the updated version. He set the eighth-quickest time of the session, only pipped to the ‘best of the rest’ time by Carlos Sainz Jnr, who was 12 thousandths of a second quicker.
Two other cars joined the top 10: Lance Stroll’s Racing Point – the team evaluating a major upgrade this weekend – and Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault.
Robert Kubica ran the upgraded Williams for the first time and gave the team some encouragement by lapping within two-tenths of a second of Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo.
The session was interrupted when Kevin Magnussen in the other Haas stopped in the Motodrom section. However his car was quickly returned to the pits and rejoined the session following a brief red flag period.
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First practice visual gaps
Sebastian Vettel – 1’14.013
+0.255 Charles Leclerc – 1’14.268
+0.302 Lewis Hamilton – 1’14.315
+0.317 Max Verstappen – 1’14.330
+0.647 Valtteri Bottas – 1’14.660
+0.800 Pierre Gasly – 1’14.813
+1.049 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’15.062
+1.061 Romain Grosjean – 1’15.074
+1.178 Lance Stroll – 1’15.191
+1.554 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’15.567
+1.591 Sergio Perez – 1’15.604
+1.603 Lando Norris – 1’15.616
+1.746 Kevin Magnussen – 1’15.759
+1.763 Daniil Kvyat – 1’15.776
+1.764 Alexander Albon – 1’15.777
+1.810 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’15.823
+1.940 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’15.953
+2.369 Antonio Giovinazzi – 1’16.382
+2.546 Robert Kubica – 1’16.559
+3.113 George Russell – 1’17.126
Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.
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eljueta (@eljueta)
26th July 2019, 12:00
Wow at the Haas situation. I get having an updated part going wrong but so wrong for so many races? It’s hard to know how these kinds of decisions go but they had a lot of time to compare data and figure that the initial spec car was better. And apparently by a large margin.
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
26th July 2019, 12:48
Well, their problem identifying the deficiencies of their design is really the inconsistency of their current drivers. GRO is sulking for the first half of the season for not being in a winning car and the second half for making so many mistakes in the first half and MAG is just a loose cannon who’s really better suited for the US bump’n’grind type racing.
In the Finnish broadcast they started speculating about Haas’ next year lineup and I’ll throw in my suggestion: Pato O’ward and Ocon
(I know, I know RB junior and a AMG contracted one but whatever)
eljueta (@eljueta)
26th July 2019, 13:05
Didn’t even know Pato O’Ward before I read your comment :P
Yeah that would be a strong lineup apparently. But I think Gunther would go for an experienced/rookie lineup, and I don’t think Ocon counts as super experienced. I would be surprised if they maintain GRO/MAG for next year though.
anon
26th July 2019, 19:09
@uneedafinn2win, O’Ward isn’t even remotely close to qualifying for a Superlicence – none of his championships count, as the only championships he has had any major success had tiny entry lists, meaning that he faced very little competition.
The Prototype Challenge title that he won in 2017 is a perfect example – there were a grand total of three teams in his category, and only one other driver in one of those rival teams actually competed in every single race. If you strip out Daytona, where there were a couple of one off-entries that took the entry list to five cars for that race, in every other single race that season, O’Ward was guaranteed to finish on the podium in his class.
You could even say that, with only one other driver from another team competing in every single race, O’Ward basically just had to finish to guarantee at least 2nd place in the championship – if a random member of this forum had been able to raise enough money to race in every race that season, they could have claimed 3rd place in the championship just by default.
His Indy Lights title was also not that impressive when you realise that there were only seven drivers competing in the full season that year, and several of those drivers had fairly unimpressive records in their own right – which means his title does not count given that there needed to be at least twelve drivers in every race weekend (partially to ensure that there is actually some competition for the title).
hobo (@hobo)
26th July 2019, 14:43
@eljueta – I don’t know the particulars of the Haas situation, but it could also be like Ferrari last year or McLaren some years ago where the initial step of a development seems like an improvement–though maybe a small one. But as you go down that new development path you either dead-end very quickly or you start to lose time because that was a bad path to take long term.
Pjotr (@pietkoster)
26th July 2019, 12:19
Two Ferrari’s the fastest for this moment. Where have we seen that before… Waiting for a dramatic race the weather is unpredictable at the moment.
Bram (@br444m)
26th July 2019, 12:46
Note: Hamilton on medium tyres.
Chaitanya
26th July 2019, 13:25
Both Hamilton and Bottas only used Medium tyres.
LSWF
26th July 2019, 12:52
Russell with the upgrade could be nearly F1.5 :)
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
26th July 2019, 13:12
The HAAS car has great single lap pace in high temperature weather, Magnussen got 5th on the grid in Austria, so it doesnt surprise me to see them higher up the leader board. Their main issue is the heat destoys the tyres during the race.
SparkyAMG (@)
26th July 2019, 13:14
Encouraging for Williams? Kubica trialling the new aero package 6 tenths faster than Russell… one of them might even sneak off the back row.
G
26th July 2019, 13:41
Stick those bits on Russell’s car and he could definitely get ahead of at least 1 of the Sauber’s