(Motorsports news) After forgoing running the soft tyres during FP1, Sergio Perez finished fourth in the other Red Bull, roughly half a second slower than Verstappen. The Ferrari drivers were far down the field. Verstappen led the early running on the tougher tyres that comprised the first quarter of the hour-long practice. The home hero moved to the top of the timesheets with his first flying lap and later reclaimed the lead after George Russell and Hamilton briefly held it.
Verstappen gained over two seconds during his maiden nine-lap stint while using the hard tyres and coated the upper aerodynamic surfaces of his RB19 with yellow flow-viz paint. He concluded the stint with a best time of 1m13.191s. After a brief stint in the pits, where the majority of the field joined him, Verstappen returned to finish a subsequent stint on the hards with a heavier fuel load as the Mercedes drivers closed in slightly with a series of then personal best lap times.
Before the halfway point, Williams driver Logan Sargeant initiated the swap to soft tyres, which propelled him to the front of the field with a 1m12.814s. Verstappen continued his high-fuel running, interrupted at one point by coming across the Alpine pair moving slowly through the undulating first sector. Perez then moved ahead with a 1m12.439s with his first soft-shod flier, which he improved with a second effort on the red-walled rubber to lead on a 1m12.323s.
When FP1 was called off due to Hulkenberg’s high-speed rearward spin coming out of the penultimate circuit, Hamilton was on his way to beating Perez’s time with his first flying lap on the softs and had already set a purple first sector. FP1 continued for a roughly 10-minute final lap to the finish line after an eight-minute delay when Hulkenberg’s Haas was craned away over the track to the inside of Turn 13 and its enormous, steeply banked gravel trap.
Verstappen began this on the softs for the first time, and he swiftly topped the timings with a pace of 1m11.852s. Hamilton and then Alonso subsequently edged out Perez on their first soft fliers. The leaders seemed to be getting ready for a series of final fliers after finishing multiple tours to cool their softs, but these did not happen save for Hamilton’s late effort, which started with another purple sector one before he backed off late.
Verstappen’s otherwise uneventful session came to a screeching halt as he finished his final lap prior to the post-FP1 practice start sequences on the grid. Charles Leclerc finished ahead of Robert Shwartzman in FP1, replacing Carlos Sainz as part of the Scuderia’s aim to fulfill the standards for rookie practice running in 2023. The Ferrari drivers ended in 16th and 19th, respectively.
Also read: Russell: It’s incorrect to label Mercedes’ 2023 Formula One season a failure
