Charles Leclerc topped a Ferrari 1-2 in the opening practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix, an FP1 where the Scuderia had pace and Mercedes had very little porpoising.
The last time Formula 1 was in Barcelona it was a first group run in the all-new cars, this Friday it was a first look at a barrage of upgrades – McLaren’s MCL36 featuring a whopping 10!
From new floors to wings to Aston Martin’s controversial ‘Green Red Bull’, as it has already been dubbed, every team excluding Haas ran new parts.
And while it could be said that Ferrari’s 1-2 is a sign that their new anti-porpoising floor and rear wing have closed the gap on Red Bull’s lighter RB18, traffic meant Max Verstappen had to back off on his qualy-style flying lap.
He finished P3, three-tenths down on Leclerc with George Russell in his almost bounce-free W13 fourth fastest.
The @ScuderiaFerrari leads P1! 👌#F1 #SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/6ULVDjWeQ0
— Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (@Circuitcat_eng) May 20, 2022
Out on the hard Pirellis for their first run, reigning World Champion Verstappen went quickest, Leclerc took over only for Verstappen hit back, the benchmark time a 1:22.394 after the first 15 minutes.
There were positive signs for Mercedes early in the session as neither Lewis Hamilton nor Russell seemed to have a lot of porpoising – and that was with the car’s ride height quite low to the ground.
As his rivals laid down the laps, Sebastian Vettel returned to the Aston Martin garage after just two tours of the circuit. Parking his AMR22 in the garage, Vettel hopped out while the team reportedly worked on an exhaust issue.
Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Robert Kubica also hadn’t set times while Yuki Tsunoda ran into trouble: “Something broke between my back and the seat.”
Back at the top Verstappen lowered the benchmark time to a 1:21.876 as he continued lapping on the hard tyres. The Red Bull driver, running a slimmed down RB18, was 0.870s faster than…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News – PlanetF1…