Another close weekend of racing ahead for Honda at the Portuguese Grand Prix
The third race of the season looks like being another extremely close fight at the front after a competitive day of Friday practice in Portimao.
Max and Sergio enjoyed strong starts to the weekend for Red Bull Racing as they were both in the top three, finishing second and third respectively in the opening session while Pierre made it three cars in the top six. On his first visit to Portugal in a Formula 1 car, Yuki was 13th as he completed 28 laps and gained experience at a new circuit.
The second session was delayed by 10 minutes while track inspections took place but no running was lost as the full hour was still allowed. Once again, Max secured second in the standings, while Sergio was restricted to 10th place on this occasion after having to abort his first lap on soft tyres due to traffic at the first corner.
The Scuderia AlphaTauri pair were outside the top ten in FP2 but only just in Pierre’s case as he was only 0.042s behind Sergio in 11th, with Yuki three places further back in 14th. Between them the AlphaTauri drivers combined for the highest mileage of any team in the afternoon session, giving us plenty of data to work with overnight.