Max Verstappen lead a Red Bull one-two in first practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Dutchman set a 29.617 on the soft tyres which put him almost half a second faster than his teammate Sergio Perez. Red Bull looked quick in Bahrain and despite illness, Verstappen proved he is still the man to beat going into this weekend.
Verstappen’s speed may appear ominous for rivals, Friday’s second session, under the lights, will provide conditions representative of those that will be seen in qualifying on Saturday and Sunday’s race.
Despite his pace, Verstappen was complaining over the radio about understeer – a lack of front-end grip, which was also a problem for him in Bahrain, despite his domination of the race weekend.
Aston Martin continued to mix it with the front runners with Fernando Alonso going third fastest. The two-time champion was half a second behind Verstappen’s session-topping time, and ahead of his teammate Lance Stroll by over a quarter of a second. Stroll continuing his recovery following a wrist injury pre-season.
George Russell put his Mercedes fifth, a second off the outright pace and ahead of his teammate by eighteen hundredths faster than Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes looking to be still the fourth fastest team, given that conditions will be different for FP2, qualifying and the race.
Hamilton, who announced before the session that he had split with his long-time trainer Angela Cullen, complained of a lack of grip as Mercedes lagged more than a second off Verstappen.
Ferrari appeared also not to show their full potential Carlos Sainz seven over a second off Verstappen. During the session the team confirmed they have installed new power units on both of their cars for the second round of the season following Charles Leclerc’s retirement in Bahrain.
Leclerc may have opted against doing an extra run to save a set of soft tyres for the race, but Ferrari’s run plan was different to Red Bull and Aston Martin. Pierre Gasly was eighth eight hundredths ahead of the Williams of Alex Albon with Yuki Tsunoda rounding out the top ten.
However, Gasly did complain about a brake issue towards the end of the session.
Despite several complaints and near-misses in traffic as is typical with this high-speed circuit, the hour-long session passed without major drama. Esteban Ocon was twelfth, the two Alpine’s spilt by Leclerc’s Ferrari.
Nyck De Vries put his Alpha Tauri thirteenth going four hundredths faster than the McLaren of Oscar Piastri. Nico Hulkenberg lead the two Haas’s after going almost a tenth and a half faster than Kevin Magnussen.
Logan Sargeant was seventeen ahead of the two Alfa Romeo’s of Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou. Lando Norris rounded out the field.
