Montmelo (Spain), Aug 14 (IANS): Valtteri Bottas on Friday posted the fastest time as he led a Mercedes 1-2 in the first practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton finished just 0.039s off and Max Verstappen was 0.9s slower in third place.
As per a report on Formula One's official website, Bottas and Hamilton traded places at the top of the leaderboard throughout, but it was when they switched to soft tyres for their flying laps with around 30 minutes remaining that the table-topping time of 1m16.785s was set by the Finn.
There was an encouraging improvement for Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who ended fifth behind his teammate Charles Leclerc.
Ferrari changed the chassis on Vettel's car following a poor run of form.
Romain Grosjean was a surprise sixth for Haas, 1.506s off the pace.