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Bottas fighting early
Valtteri Bottas took the top spot on the time sheets, despite a late puncture in the first practice session of the weekend.
His Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, was keeping the Finn honest, staying right on his tail, being only 0.069 seconds behind.
Despite the dominance becoming apparent in recent races, the gap to the rest was not as big as it usually is with the top 10 all being within three-quarters of a second of the top of the timesheet.
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Midfield lines blurred
The two Racing Points of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll along with Red Bull's Alex Albon have closed the massive gap that usually appears behind Max Verstappen, tightening up the midfield so far this weekend.
The fight behind that has seen a step up from Renault so far with the idea of the team taking an aggressive approach to this weekend. The fight with McLaren looks unbelievably tight for the weekend ahead.
Behind are the Alpha Tauris of Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly who are just outside of the top 10 in P11 and P12 and unfortunately, the competitiveness seems to end there.
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Then comes Ferrari power and Willliams
Of the last eight cars of the field, six are Ferrari powered including the works team. Three Ferrari powered cars did not complete a lap time and Kimi Raikkonen and his Alfa Romeo were quicker than the Scuderia outlet.
This sparks a lot of concerns as the Tifosi get ever frustrated before we head to another power circuit, Monza. Not only that but there are three Italian GPs this season putting more pressure on the Maranello based team to do well, which right now simply will not happen.
Other than the Ferrari powered cars is the Williams team. After a recent buyout of the team spirits were high which were quickly stunted as for the second race weekend in a row they do not look competitive again. A strange scenario after the four race span when the team looked on the up again.