Portuguese Grand Prix - a guide to Portimão

Formula 1

Portuguese Grand Prix - a guide to Portimão

F1 returns to Portugal for round three of the 2021 campaign

Ewan Gale

Thursday 29 April 2021 11:08

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What lap times can we expect?

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On the only visit to Portimão so far, Hamilton stole pole position away from Valtteri Bottas with a time of one minute 16.652secs on his second flying lap using medium tyres.

With cool temperatures expected across the weekend, tyre warm-up could be critical and soft tyres may be the way to go.

Other factors include the often talked about downforce cuts enforced this season, although the bedding in of the resurfaced asphalt laid down just before last year's event should improve overall grip.

With offsetting factors, and taking into consideration the slightly slower lap times at the first two races in Bahrain and Imola compared to last year a definitive pole lap time estimation is 1:17.500.

Who will be fast?

Red Bull will no doubt enter the race weekend as favourites after Max Verstappen's performance at Imola although write Lewis Hamilton off at your peril.

The midfield should start to resemble some sort of pecking order after this event. McLaren and Ferrari look the strongest and there should be no concern for the former's pace given the immense speed of Lando Norris in the opening two rounds.

AlphaTauri performed well here last season and despite showing speed this year the team has been a victim of its own mistakes. Surely the best is yet to be shown.

The only team that you can comfortably predict is Haas after the team fitted its only upgrades of the year at Imola. In a long season, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin have another long weekend ahead of them.

Where can we see overtaking?

Due to the undulating surface, passing is considerably easier at Portimão than at most tracks featured on the F1 calendar.

Despite the numerous opportunities around the lap, turn one is the clear favourite passing place with the majority of the action taking place at turn one last year. This is to be expected given the flat out final corner, long main straight and the DRS activation zone.

With cool and windy conditions expected this weekend grip could be at a premium, so it is likely opportunities may appear in some unexpected places this time around.