FP1: Gasly beats Norris and Leclerc to go fastest in opening practice in Jeddah
On the back of his strong result from last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly topped the timesheets for Alpine in the opening practice session at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo reports on Free Practice 1 in Jeddah.
The drivers and teams were greeted by hot and humid conditions in the opening practice session which saw Alpine's Pierre Gasly cause a stir by shooting to the top of the timesheets with a time of 1m29.239s.
The championship leader Lando Norris ended up second fastest, going by a mere seven thousandths slower than Gasly. Although Ferrari looked to struggle for pace in the early part of the session, Charles Leclerc set the third quickest time, ending a less then a tenth behind Gasly.
On the back of his dominant showing last time out in Bahrain, Oscar Piastri put his McLaren in fourth, finishing ahead of Williams' Alex Albon and Mercedes’ George Russell, who reported something feeling “weird under braking” in his W16.
Having retired from the Sakhir race due to damage picked up during his collision with Yuki Tsunoda, Carlos Sainz claimed P7, ahead of Lewis Hamilton in P8 and the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda in P9 and P10.
Liam Lawson left his soft-tyre run late, but he still managed to set the 11th quickest time, with Kick Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg ending up 12th fastest.
Kimi Antonelli looked relatively strong on the mediums, but he was unable to replicate his competitiveness on the soft, finishing the session in P13, ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso in P14 and Isack Hadjar in P15.
Jack Doohan took P16 for Alpine, while Lance Stroll was P17 for Aston Martin and the Haas duo of Bearman and Ocon were P18 and P19. Gabriel Bortoleto, meanwhile, brought up the rear in P20 for Kick Sauber.
