F1 | Free practice analysis in Türkiye: Hamilton flies, surprises Leclerc

Sixteenth round of the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship. The Turkish Grand Prix will take place in Istanbul, yet another chapter of the beautiful world championship challenge between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, with the Briton ahead by just two points in the championship with seven races to go. Today's free practice told us how the Mercedes driver is very competitive, especially in terms of race pace, the best ever among the twenty on the track, while the Dutchman seemed to struggle a bit to keep up with his rival.

There is one however: Hamilton will have to serve ten positions on the starting grid on Sunday for the replacement of the internal combustion engine (ICE), having exceeded the limit allowed during one season (three). Different strategy compared to Red Bull, which in Sochi decided to replace the entire engine at once starting from the bottom. The new component fitted by Hamilton will allow Mercedes to be a little calmer in view of the immediate future, but they will most likely have to change other parts between now and the end of the season, and for this reason we expect more surprises over the course of the weekend.

Leaving this aside, as can be seen from our table, Red Bull seems to pay a few tenths in each lap compared to Mercedes: both teams have opted for a race pace simulation with the medium tires (C3), and Hamilton's pace is always constant on the 27, while Verstappen struggled to get there, with the Dutchman having complained of several problems with the car's setting throughout the day. On the Ferrari side, the Red team also ran exclusively with the yellow ones, considering that Sainz will start from the back of the grid having replaced the entire power unit. Leclerc surprises, especially on the flying lap, the second best of the day, while on the race pace we cannot make direct comparisons for example with McLaren, which focused more on something else and with different tyres, even if at first glance it doesn't seem bad at all the pace imposed by the Monegasque and Carlos.

UNKNOWN RAIN

Bad weather is arriving in Istanbul, already in FP2 the wind picked up a lot, and the long-awaited rain for tomorrow and largely also on Sunday could radically change the whole scenario. We'll see, it promises to be another very, very interesting weekend, and some outsiders, why not, could take advantage of it.