Everything that happened in wet first Imola F1 practice

Charles Leclerc headed team-mate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari dominated a wet first practice session of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend at Imola.

Key moments

– Leclerc fastest despite multiple spins
– Verstappen best non-Ferrari but 1.4s down in third
– Brief red flag as Norris spins at Acque Minerali
– Bottas crashes at same corner after chequered flag

The Emilia Romagna GP is the first sprint race weekend of the 2022 F1 season, and as such FP1 – the only practice session before qualifying – featured plenty of running after an initial reluctance from teams to take to the wet track.

The season’s clear top two teams so far, Red Bull and Ferrari, largely dominated the hour-long session, with Sergio Perez’s 1m35.476s on full wet tyres standing as the benchmark time until the final 20 minutes.

Championship leader Leclerc was just a tenth and a half slower at that point, though his session was not without incident as he spun twice as he grappled with conditions – most notably at Acque Minerali, where he ran wide on corner entry and out onto the kerb before rotating.

The Ferraris were the first of the frontrunners onto the intermediate tyres with 22 minutes of the session remaining, and Sainz immediately went fastest with two successive times that put him two seconds clear of the pack.

Leclerc beat this time on his first flying lap by 0.094s, as he and Sainz traded fastest times from that point – despite another half-spin out of Tamburello for Leclerc.

He ended up 0.877s up on his team-mate with a best time of 1m29.402s, with Max Verstappen third for Red Bull but more than 1.4s off the benchmark time.

Haas pair Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher were fourth and fifth, both more than three seconds behind Leclerc, ahead of Perez and the lead Alpine of Fernando Alonso.

Sebastian Vettel tiptoed around as he struggled for grip early on in his Aston Martin but, having been the first to switch to intermediate tyres, found more pace and ended up eighth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri).

George Russell was the lead Mercedes in 10th with team-mate Lewis Hamilton 18th – though the seven-time world champion was unable to set a representative time on the intermediate compound thanks to a late red flag shown when Lando Norris stopped in the gravel at Acque Minerali.

🚩 RED FLAG 🚩

Lando Norris finds himself beached in the gravel at Turn 12 ❌

Luckily the McLaren driver is able to drive out and return to the pits #ImolaGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Ua7YLtXmYr

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 22, 2022

That proved to be short-lived as Norris, who ended the session 14th, was able to reverse his McLaren out.

Valtteri Bottas then crashed at the same corner after the chequered flag had been shown, beaching his Alfa Romeo in the gravel trap.

Bottas is in the barrier! 😮

Driver is OK, however he is unable to drive back to the pits #ImolaGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/BdqZJ2tahT

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 22, 2022

Prior to those incidents, drivers in particular struggled to get their cars stopped on the run downhill into Rivazza.

Williams duo Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi also both had moments early in the session, with Albon skipping over the grass at Variante Alta not long after Latifi ran into the gravel at the Tosa hairpin as both locked up.

They ended up 17th and 20th respectively, with Hamilton and Zhou Guanyu between them.

Practice 1 Results