The group came out en masse at the start of the one-hour session, the only opportunity for the teams to prepare before Friday’s qualifying session and the next two races.
All the cars used the middle tires in the early stages, with Fernando Alonso of Alpine setting the first benchmark in 1m09.438s.
He was soon overtaken by Verstappen’s 1m08.656s and Kevin Magnussen’s 1m08.501s before the former established himself as a favorite on the yellow-walled enclosure.
In a long 12-lap race, Verstappen achieved a series of faster times, with his 1m07.720 completing the first five minutes.
After backing down, Verstappen initially couldn’t go any faster, but after another period of touring slowly he was able to go faster again with a 1m07.496s.
Just after Leclerc had come in with a 1m08.064s that put him 0.5 seconds behind his title rival, the session stopped because Norris threw himself next to the track on turn 6, the long and wide left at the end. of the second sector of the track.
Norris, who had reported that his engine was running in “pillow house mode” during the first few laps, reported that smoke was coming out from under his seat and so he decided to stop and jump out of his MCL36, and the British did not appear again in FP1.
The session stalled for nearly 10 minutes, after which the Ferrari duo led the change to soft and mid-session qualifying simulations.
Silverstone winner Sainz used his first lap with the red-walled tire to overtake Verstappen in a 1m07.149 before Leclerc, running a few seconds behind his teammate, returned him to second with a 1m06.650.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari F1-75
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Verstappen had been the third driver to emerge in the soft shortly after the Ferrari team and then advanced with a 1m06.302s which meant a big gain over Leclerc in the starting sector, a faster time more modest in the sector two and then Verstappen backed away slightly at the end of the lap.
A few minutes later, approaching the 40 minutes of the session, Verstappen put a second flyer with the same set of softs that arrive 0.1 seconds slower than his personal mark, with few cars yet to switch to this compound .
Then, the session was interrupted by a second red flag, as a rubber band was seen that was right next to the race line at the exit of turn 6, which meant that they were lost. six more minutes when he recovered and the cars returned to the pits.
When the final quarter of the session began, when the red flag period ended, the rest of the group was finally able to complete their soft tire runs, with Sergio Pérez being the first to do so in the second Red Bull.
The Mexican rider, who had asked his team to quickly change his set-up “in the other direction” after the first laps, finished fourth but was almost a second slower than his teammate.
Perez, then, was lowered in order as the others improved, with Lewis Hamilton advancing to Sainz to run third, 0.607 seconds behind Verstappen’s lead time, as the final 10 minutes of the session approached. .
Russell then overtook his teammate to take third place with a 1m06.776s, which was 0.474s slower than Verstappen, as Magnussen also overtook Sainz with a steering wheel in the final 10 minutes. .
In the last moments, Pérez, who had improved with a second race in the soft that still left him 0.830 s from his teammate, jumped to fourth place in 1’06.838 s that followed Leclerc which reduced the distance in front Verstappen at the head of the team. field with a last effort in the last moments of the FP1.
Leclerc’s lap improved his personal best to 1m06.557s, which meant he finished at 0.255s.
Pérez’s late improvement meant that Hamilton, who had a delay on the first corner during the final laps, finished fifth ahead of Magnussen, Sainz and Alonso.
Mick Schumacher finished ninth in second Haas, while Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10.
McLaren’s difficult session was combined with Daniel Ricciardo’s car with a recurring DRS problem that caused his rear wing fin to oscillate at high speed, as was the case with Red Bull at various events. at the beginning of the season.
McLaren tried to fix the problem, but Ricciardo was not sure he had done so until the final minutes, where he achieved his personal best, with medium tires, which placed him 17th in the final order.
This was just before Zhou Guanyu made his reappearance immediately after his terror accident at Silverstone, Nicholas Latifi and Norris.