Formula 1 Racing

Verstappen beats Hamilton but spins in FP1

Verstappen beats Hamilton but spins in FP1


Red Bull’s Sergio Perez set the early pace on medium tyres at 1m20.267s, until Verstappen beat that with 1m19.332s on softs. Hamilton went third for Mercedes, three quarters of a second down despite a wild slide at Turn 9.

Both Red Bulls improved after brief pitstops, with Verstappen lowering his P1 time to 1m19.278s and Perez just 0.015s slower. Verstappen then went even faster with a 1m18.790s, half a second quicker than Perez and almost a second up on the rest.

Teams gravitated to the softs in the second half of the session, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc going third but was six tenths away from the pace, with team-mate Carlos Sainz nine tenths adrift. Perez suffered an off on his first push lap on softs and didn’t improve.

Fernando Alonso beat both Ferraris and got his Aston Martin to within 0.061s of Perez. The session was red flagged due to a GPS issue with just over 20 minutes remaining, which explained a high number of near misses in traffic.

After the resumption, Verstappen suffered a spin at Turn 4, blaming his tyres. Hamilton jumped up to second, 0.433s off Verstappen. Perez was third, ahead of Alonso, Leclerc and Sainz.

Williams’s Logan Sargeant pulled off after an apparent electrical shutdown, which ended the session four laps early.

Kevin Magnussen suffered an early off in his Haas at Turn 3, and later endured another wild ride at Turn 11. Yuki Tsunoda spun his AlphaTauri through the gravel at Turn 1.

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