The Mercedes driver, who had complained about the difficult driveability of his car early on, bolted on a fresh set of red-walled soft tyres and ran fastest by a slender 0.084 seconds.
That relegated Verstappen, the Red Bull driver having dominated much of the hour, to second while Leclerc overcame initial braking difficulties to complete the top three.
Verstappen was seemingly operating in a league of his own from his first laps in first practice as the Dutch ended the opening 25-minute stint with a 1.1s cushion over Fernando Alonso.
The Alfa Romeos opened the batting ahead to a tune of cheers from the grandstand, but it took until Carlos Sainz posted a 1m50.961s for anything like a representative time to be set.
But keeping to type in 2022, Verstappen blew that away with his first lap as he toured the 3.15 miles in 1m47.329s on the yellow-walled medium Pirellis to lead teammate Perez.
Alonso then deposed the Red Bull before spending the rest of the session attempting to split the RB18s at the top before Verstappen kept whittling away at the times to set the pace.
After 10 minutes, Verstappen cut his benchmark down to a 1m45.466s to find some 1.825s over Alonso and then lowered it further into the 1m44s, running fastest in all three sectors to set the pace on 1m44.236s to find 1.1s over Alonso as Perez ran third on a 1m45.349s.
Having completed only one install lap before Leclerc was required to pit for 25 minutes to rectify brake issues, Sainz led the Ferrari charge in fourth owing to his 1m45.628s set on the slower hard compound. The Spaniard requested hefty set-up tweaks after his first run.
While there were the occasional spikes of oversteer and clattered kerbs, the only incident of note during the first half of the hour came when George Russell tapped the Turn 11 barriers.
He locked the inside wheel while slowing for the tight right and continued straight on, but soon reversed the undamaged Mercedes and brought it for a precautionary garage visit.
However, Lance Stroll would induce a full red flag with 20 minutes to run after the Aston Martin driver, fourth at the time, slide wide at Turn 5 and clonked the outside wall.
At the right-hander where Sainz had backed out with a huge slide, Stroll buckled his car’s rear-left corner and sustained a puncture to pull up and force the session to be stopped.
Despite the first and second sectors being under yellow flags, Verstappen just squeaked round in time to post a purple…
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