Lance Stroll put Aston Martin quickest in the only practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend as F1 returned to the Shanghai International Circuit.
Stroll’s best time of a 1’36.302 on the soft tyres was three tenths faster than Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
Skies were overcast for the only practice session of the weekend with ambient and track temperatures slightly warmer than earlier forecasts had predicted. With only one hour of free practice before sprint qualifying, teams took vastly different approaches to their run plans for the session.
Stroll set the fastest time late in the hour on soft tyres. But his best was around two-and-a-half seconds slower than the fastest time of the opening practice session of the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix, set by Sebastian Vettel, indicating lap times have room to improve significantly on the track which had a layer of sealant added to it during F1’s five-year absence.
The Aston Martin driver displaced Piastri’s McLaren at the top of the times, while the two Red Bulls of Verstappen and Perez were behind them. Haas drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were fifth and sixth, with Esteban Ocon seventh in his Alpine. Alexander Albon, Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas completed the top ten, with Zhou Guanyu just behind his team mate in 11th.
Several top teams featured outside the top ten, including the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr in 13th and 14th, respectively. Lando Norris was well down in 16th, but only after abandoning his flying lap on soft tyres after going quickest of all in the first two sectors. The Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were in 17th, 18th and 19th respectively as all three only used a single set of hard tyres each during the session.
Practice was stopped briefly 15 minutes into the running when a patch of grass ignited on the inside of turn seven. The small fire forced race director Niels Wittich to red flag the session. After a brief pause to extinguish the burning patch, practice resumed minutes later.
Lewis Hamilton received a black-and-white warning flag for failing to keep inside the white line at pit entry following a near-miss between the Mercedes driver, Hulkenberg and Piastri at the final corner saw Hamilton bail to the pit lane. Piastri and Fernando Alonso also both ran down the escape road at the pit entry while testing how hard they could push on their in-laps.
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