It wasn’t the most relevant of first practice sessions as the track surface looked to be incredibly tricky, having only been laid down recently. Grip was very low, particularly at the start of the session, as the track had been cleaned in the morning. Most drivers used the hard tyre, and only George Russell used the soft at all.
It was a Red Bull 1-2 with Max Verstappen topping the session on a 1.35.077 ahead of Alexander Albon in second place. Charles Leclerc set the third fastest time, having inadvertedly brought out the red flags earlier after taking out a bollard, ahead of Pierre Gasly, who ran the medium tyre. Sebastian Vettel set the fifth fastest time ahead of Daniil Kvyat who like his team-mate ran the medium tyre.
Lando Norris set the seventh fastest time, and had a better time of things than his team-mate who stopped out on track. Antonio Giovinazzi was eighth ahead of Valtteri Bottas in ninth. It was a tricky session for Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton was only fifteenth fastest. Esteban Ocon rounded out the top 10.
The final order as you can see is very jumbled, and it was not easy to keep the car pointing in the right direction, many drivers, including Valtteri Bottas and Pierre Gasly had fairly simple looking spins. Expect Practice 2 to be more relevant as the track begins to rubber in and grip increases.
Here is the result of Practice 1.
RaceWeek 