Mercedes hold slim edge in battle with Red Bull

ROME • Red Bull's Sergio Perez and Alpine's Esteban Ocon collided in practice for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Italy's Imola circuit yesterday, bringing out red flags before champions Mercedes emerged on top.

The opening session ended with Silver Arrows driver Valtteri Bottas quickest in one minute 16.564 seconds and his seven-time world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton, last year's race winner, a mere 0.041sec slower.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, Hamilton's closest rival in the Bahrain season-opener when he started on pole and finished second, was third on the time sheets and 0.058sec off the pace on a clear morning.

The session ended with Russian rookie Nikita Mazepin spinning his Haas at the final corner for the second time in the space of an hour.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was fourth fastest at a home circuit for the Italian team, with AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly fifth and Carlos Sainz, the Scuderia's other driver, sixth.

Technical problems that affected radio communications and data contributed to the Turn Five collision between Frenchman Ocon and Mexican Perez, former teammates at the Force India team that are now known as Aston Martin, leading to a shredded tyre.

The coming together had been unclear immediately, with cameras not capturing images, but stewards decided to take no further action.

"Ocon slowed before Turn Five in order to let Perez by, as well as moving entirely to the inside of the turn," a statement read. "Perez was on a fast lap. The two cars reached the apex at the same time and just barely touched wheels.

"In the end, both drivers agreed in the hearing that it was an unfortunate miscommunication of timing between them, not helped by the fact that both drivers had limited or no communications with their teams at the time."

Meanwhile, McLaren yesterday praised Formula One's social media efforts despite stinging criticism from their driver Daniel Ricciardo, who recently labelled the competition's social media team as "idiots" after they put out a promotional top-10 moments package of last season that had eight crashes.

"Maybe 12-year-old kids want to see that kind of content, and that's cool because they don't know any better, but we're not kids," the Australian told Square Mile magazine. "Just do better, guys. Do better than that."

Spins for Haas' Russian driver Nikita Mazepin in the space of an hour during the first practice for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

However, McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl said that he did not wholly agree with Ricciardo's assessment, adding: "From our point of view, F1's social media team has done and is doing an excellent job of promoting our sport.

"If you look at the numbers also, they have delivered a rapid growth in engagement in recent years, also managing to connect the sport to a lot of new audiences."

Speaking at Imola, Ricciardo said he was sorry for his harsh tone but insisted last year had been an amazing season with first-time winners and different faces on the podium.

"I felt like there were better stories to be told, as opposed to just crashes... I would probably highlight the highs more if I had creative control," the former Renault driver said.

REUTERS

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F1 EMILIA ROMAGNA GRAND PRIX

Practice 3 (5.55pm) & qualifying (8.30pm) - Singtel TV Ch114 & StarHub Ch208