Penalised Hamilton kicks off Brazilian weekend on top

F1 Grand Prix, GP Brazil, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos

Lewis Hamilton was fastest in the first practice session at Interlagos, São Paolo. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez came second and third quickest in a trouble-free 60 minutes.

First practice at Brazil was immediately the only real practice session of the day with qualifying coming in later that day.

With time a premium, drivers were out early, and it was Red Bull Racing who immediately emerged fastest, followed by Mercedes. The Brixworth-based team had just revealed before the session that Lewis Hamilton was set to take another 5-place grid penalty for a new ICE. Rumours were abound earlier this week as it emerged that a supposedly fixed issue had returned, producing reduced water pressure at the Mexican Grand Prix.

The Ferrari duo of Sainz and Leclerc also seemed very much at ease from their first laps, along with Alpine as Ocon sat fourth early on in the session with one of his first laps.

Halfway into the session, most switched to the soft tyre to get a benchmark in for qualifying. On these, it was Hamilton who went fastest., nearly four tenths faster than Verstappen and Perez. Bottas followed in 4th, half a second down on his teammate.

Ferrari easily stayed in the top 10, just like both Alpines. Lance Stroll just made it to 10th by being 0.022s faster than Tsunoda for AlphaTauri. Vettel and Raikkonen were also very closely matched, following up in 12th and 13th.

Further back, both McLarens didn't fit the soft tyre and were therefore down in 14th and 19th position when the session ended. Pierre Gasly also found himself unusually far back in 15th until he moved up into 5th on his third lap on the soft tyres.

Mick Schumacher topped both Williams in 16th while Nikita Mazepin completed the field, 3 tenths behind Ricciardo, despite using the soft compound Pirellis.