George Russell seized his moment as Lewis Hamilton's replacement, grabbing his first practice P1 at the Sakhir GP and recording F1's shortest ever lap time, 54.5s. The previous shortest lap time was Niki Lauda with a 58.79s in 1974, at the Dijon-Prenois circuit in a Ferrari. Max Verstappen was second quickest, 0.176s down, with Alex Albon third. Valtteri Bottas, who is adamant this weekend is not a 'showdown' for a Mercedes race seat, was P4, 0.322s slower than Russell. Formula 1 stepped into the unknown on Friday as the 20 drivers took to the Bahrain International Circuit's outer oval for the first time ever. And three of them were in new cars. Russell climbed into the Mercedes W11,...
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