ANALYSIS: How did Gasly top the opening practice in Jeddah?

Alpine driver Pierre Gasly was the surprise pacesetter in first practice at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo analyses where the Frenchman gained over McLaren's Lando Norris.

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.

Norris set the quickest time in Sector 1 with a 32.322s while Gasly was 85 thousands of a second slower in the first brutally fast sector. The second sector produced a similar picture, with the McLaren man having been 84 thousands of a second quicker than his Alpine rival.

However, the Frenchman set the quickest time in the final segment of the 6.174km circuit, stopping the clock at 28.536s while Norris was over a tenth of a second slower.

The telemetry provided by the F1DataAnalysis indicated that there was a significant difference in terms of ERS deployment between the Alpine and the McLaren team.

Norris lost significant speed to Gasly a few hundred meters ahead of the last turn which indicated that he ran out of electrical energy while the Frenchman was able to maintain his top speed.

In terms of overall performance, Gasly also gained on the main straight into Turn 1, displaying higher top speed than the McLaren driver. By contrast, the MCL39 was quicker through the high-speed sections of Turns 4, 5, 10 and 11 due to its superior downforce.