All cars ran the medium tires in the early stages, with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso setting the benchmark for first place at 1m09.438s. This was soon beaten by Verstappen’s 1m08.656s and Kevin Magnussen’s 1m08.501s, before the former established himself as the leader of the yellow walled group. Over a long 12-lap course, Verstappen set a number of fastest times, with his 1m07.720 completing the first five minutes. After dropping back, Verstappen was initially unable to go any faster, but after another period of slow touring he was able to go fastest again in 1m07.496s. Just as Leclerc had clocked in with a 1m08.064s that put him 0.5s clear of his title rival, the session was halted due to Norris going off the track at Turn 6 – the long and sweeping left-hander at the end of second sector of the track. Norris, who had reported his engine running in “limp home mode” during the opening laps, reported smoke coming from under his seat so decided to stop and jump out of his MCL36 – with the Briton don’t appear again in FP1. The session was interrupted for nearly 10 minutes, after which the Ferrari duo led the switch to softs and mid-session simulation qualifying. Silverstone winner Sainz used his first lap on the red-walled tire to move ahead of Verstappen with a 1m07.149s before Leclerc, running seconds behind his team-mate, pipped him to second with a 1m06.650s . Carlos SainzFerrari F1-75 Photo: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images Verstappen was the third driver to appear on the softs shortly after the Ferrari team and then took the lead with a 1m06.302s which marked a big gain for Leclerc in sector one, a more modestly faster time in sector 2 and then Verstappen dropped slightly behind at the end of the round. A few minutes later, approaching the 40-minute mark of the session, Verstappen set a second flyer with the same set of softs coming in 0.1 seconds slower than his personal best, with few other cars yet to have changed in this complex. The session was then interrupted by a second red flag as a strip of rubber was spotted just outside the racing line on the exit of Turn 6, which meant a further six minutes were lost as it was recovered and the cars returned to the pits. When the final quarter of the session began as the red flag period ended, the rest of the pack were finally able to complete the runs on soft tyres, with Sergio Perez the first to do so in the second Red Bull. The Mexican driver, who had asked his team to hastily change his set-up “in the other direction” after the opening laps, made it to fourth but was almost a second slower than his team-mate. Perez therefore shuffled the order as the others improved, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Sainz and running third – 0.607 seconds behind Verstappen’s time – as the final 10 minutes of the session approached. Russell then pipped his team-mate to take third with a 1m06.776s, which was 0.474s slower than Verstappen, as Magnussen also got ahead of Sainz by a figure just inside the final 10 minutes. In the closing moments, Perez, who had improved with a second run on the softs that still left him 0.830s clear of his team-mate, jumped to fourth with a 1m06.838s that trailed Leclerc closing the gap on Verstappen at the head field with a last ditch effort in the dying moments of FP1. Leclerc’s lap improved his personal best to 1m06.557s, which meant he closed 0.255s back. Perez’s late improvement meant Hamilton, who had been delayed at turn one in the closing laps, finished fifth ahead of Magnussen, Sainz and Alonso. Mick Schumacher took ninth in the second Haas, while Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10. McLaren’s difficult session was compounded by Daniel Ricciardo’s car having a recurring DRS problem which meant his rear wing flap wobbled wildly at top speed, as it did for Red Bull at several events earlier in the season. McLaren tried to fix the problem, but Ricciardo wasn’t sure he had until the final minutes, where he set a personal best – on the medium tires – that put him 17th on the final grid. This was right before Zhou Guanyu made his comeback straight after his horror at Silverstone, Nicholas Latifi and Norris.
