Leclerc set the session’s best time – a 1m16.990s – aboard the updated Ferrari shortly after the one-hour FP1 action was stopped by Alex Albon’s Williams shutting down after he hit a kerb hard and ran down the Imola track from Piratella to Acque Minerali, where he stopped on the inside.
Leclerc’s time was set with a second set of soft tyres and pipped Mercedes’ George Russell by 0.104s – the Briton in contention for the leading time even during the early running on harder tyres.
Carlos Sainz finished third 0.130s down to back up Ferrari’s strong start to the weekend at its first home race of 2024.
Red Bull did its soft tyre running much later than the rest, heading out with just a quarter of the session remaining.
Max Verstappen also had to return to the pits to get a visor tear-off removed from a rear brake duct, which meant his tyres had done more miles than would be ideal.
When he did get going, Verstappen set the quickest times in the first and third sectors, but a slow middle sector left him fifth behind team-mate Sergio Perez and 0.25s down on Leclerc.
On a second attempt, Verstappen again went fastest in the opening sector and was 0.006s up on Leclerc after sector two, but when braking for the Variante Alta chicane his rear step out of line wildly and he had to cut the chicane – as Sainz had done in a similar manner earlier.
On a third softs attempt in the session’s dying moments, Verstappen set another purple sector one but then understeered off at high speed through the second part of Acque Minerali and had to skate through the gravel trap.
Yuki Tsunoda took sixth for RB just up the road from the team’s Faenza base, with Lewis Hamilton seventh ahead of Oscar Piastri.
Hamilton also had a mid-session scare when he spun at Acque Minerali with just over 20 minutes remaining after clouting the inside kerb hard aboard his Mercedes, which rapidly went around and speared him off-track but not far enough to hit a wall.
Miami winner Lando Norris ended up down in 16th in the other McLaren.
Imola GP – FP1 results:
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