Fernando Alonso was the first driver to head down a very dusty pitlane in Jeddah, where the opening one-hour session was taking place in sunny but very windy conditions.
As Alonso pulled over to complete a practice start just as the pitlane exit light went green for the session’s start, Aston Martin pair Nico Hulkenberg and Lance Stroll therefore moved ahead and duly the set the initial quickest time a few minutes later.
Hulkenberg’s 1m39.317s was quickly beaten by his teammate, then Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon, Sergio Perez, Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo, before Verstappen established the real early benchmark at 1m34.167s.
Ahead of his timed lap, Verstappen had run deep and off the track at the final corner – the turn where the barrier has been moved back following his crash in qualifying there in 2021 – as did Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and later Gasly and Lewis Hamilton, the latter pair with locked front right wheels.
The early running took place with the field split…
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