Alex Albon posted the quickest time before crashing as the weather dominated first practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The session began slowly as heavy rain left most of Interlagos with heavy standing water, although Ferrari were quick to head out and complete some installation laps on the full wets.
Carlos Sainz was the first driver to post a lap time, eventually dropping into the 1m22’s by the end of his run.
The rain would ease and the circuit would quickly dry out as Charles Leclerc went fastest initially on the full wet before switching to the intermediates.
Immediately, lap times would tumble with the Monegasque improving by almost four seconds on his first flying lap with a 1m17.2s.
Lewis Hamilton would be the first to use the thinner-treaded wets but didn’t set a time as most of the teams continued to wait for conditions to get better.
Eventually, more competitive times would be posted with Vettel getting closer and then moving ahead of his teammate into P1 by two-tenths.
Sainz sat seven-tenths down in third for McLaren but ahead of the two Renaults as Mercedes and Red Bull remained in the garage.
Valtteri Bottas changed that with 25 minutes to go, heading out and going fastest on his first run as the track continued to dry quickly.
10 minutes later, as the track approached that greasy stage between wet and dry, Alex Albon capitalised to go quickest on his first run of the session for Red Bull.
Unlike Bottas though, the Thai was able to improve on his second lap, posting the fastest time of 1m16.142s.
The final five minutes saw the top three teams try to sneak in at least one flying lap on the slick tyres.
Those hopes would quickly end as first Max Verstappen slid off the track at Turn 2 before Albon went into the barrier at Juncao as key areas of the track remained too wet.
His crash caused a red flag which brought to an early end to the session but also ensured he remained P1 after his final timed lap on the intermediates.
That also meant Verstappen and Hamilton failed to set a time leaving them bottom of the timesheet.
While the drying conditions meant any kind of competitive order was impossible to gauge, Renault and McLaren look set to continue their midfield duel as Sainz led Hulkenberg and Ricciardo.
Toro Rosso’s usual wet-weather strength shining with Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat eighth and ninth as Lando Norris completed the top 10.
George Russell was one of the last drivers to run on the intermediates and jumped up to 11th, 1.2s ahead of potential 2020 Williams teammate Nicholas Latifi.
Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez joined Hamilton and Verstappen in not completing a timed lap.
Full results from Practice 1 can be seen below:
