What happened in first F1 practice at Saudi Arabian GP

Lewis Hamilton narrowly headed his Formula 1 championship rival Max Verstappen in the opening practice at the new Jeddah venue, as the penultimate race weekend of the 2021 campaign commenced in Saudi Arabia.

While the preceding opening Formula 2 practice at the circuit had its start delayed significantly due to “operational issues” and then had crashes for newcomer Logan Sargeant and Alessio Deledda disrupted the running, F1’s first session both started on time and went off without any noticeable incidents.

Though laptimes early on were improving in huge chunks on the still ‘green’ surface of the circuit, Verstappen was a clear pace-setter initially despite running the hardest tyre, as he spent much of his first stint out of the pits over a second in the clear.

After pitting and then rejoining on the same set, he found some more time, and as the session ticked over its halfway point Verstappen held a lead of just under seven tenths over Hamilton, and over nine tenths over Valtteri Bottas, with both Mercedes drivers having run on softs.

Yet once all three swapped for fresh softs Verstappen was at first unable to improve on his hard-shod tyre, leapfrogged by both Hamilton and Bottas, albeit with the latter just 0.005s clear.

After some apparent in-session set-up adjustments, the Red Bull man did sneak in a clean flying lap in the very final minutes to split the two Mercedes drivers, ending up 0.056s off Hamilton.

Lighting it up ✨#SaudiArabianGP 🇸🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/NsgGL447Sj

— Formula 1 (@F1) December 3, 2021

Pierre Gasly was best of the rest behind the trio for AlphaTauri, while his sometime GP2 team-mate and title rival Antonio Giovinazzi was a standout fifth, just half a second off the pace as he began his penultimate weekend as an Alfa Romeo F1 driver.

The two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc completed the top seven, followed by Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), a hard-shod Fernando Alonso (Alpine) and Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin).

It was a contrasting session for Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez, who was way off the Dutchman’s pace initially but gradually closed the gap to end up 11th-fastest, just over a second down on Verstappen.

Practice 1 Results