MADRID, 7 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The British driver George Russell (Mercedes) was the fastest this Friday in the first two free practice sessions of the Miami Grand Prix, fifth of the season in the Formula 1 World Championship, while the Spanish Fernando Alonso (Alpine) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) had mixed luck on the American street circuit.
Russell already warned in the first free practice with the second position, only surpassed by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, but with the feeling of not having left all the arguments on the track. The 24-year-old Brit saved his best repertoire for the second set, which was marked by interruptions and red flags.
The first, at the start, was by Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), and the next two belonged to Carlos Sainz and Nicholas Latifi (Williams) leaving the session just 40 minutes after the scheduled time. The Spaniard’s was painful because of how he was executing his tactic this weekend. In fact, when Sainz went to the wall without a choice, he was marking the best stopwatch.
The man from Madrid, who had already finished out in Australia and Italy, got down from his car in a state of dismay when he lost control and ended up crashing into the wall at turn 13. Sainz, who finished eleventh in the time table, wasted his good start and the chances of getting among the best before the last day of ‘practice’ this Saturday.
His teammate Leclerc, leader of the World Cup, finished second with great reliability. Third was the Mexican Sergio Pérez (Red Bull). And ahead, a Russell who continues to knock on the door at the start of the season – where he was already the fastest in the Imola free practice sessions – and even got on the podium in AlbertVille.
The one from the United Kingdom, with a time of 1:29.938, was the most astute on Friday in a chaotic day that also left Max Verstappen abandoned due to a hydraulic problem. Situations that the rest of the grid took advantage of to improve their performance, although without the possibility of developing their full potential due to the continuous stoppages.
For his part, Fernando Alonso -from less to more- excited with a hard-fought fifth position (1:30.372) and finished just two thousandths behind Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), fourth, and another of the protagonists in Miami after the International Automobile Federation (FIA) authorized him to race with the piercing he is wearing in his nose.