Lewis Hamilton led teammate Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes set the early pace at the French Grand Prix in Practice 1 on Friday.
Using a second set of the Ultrasoft tyre, the world champion posted a 1m32.231s with just under half an hour remaining to lead his Finnish partner by almost a tenth-and-half around the Circuit Paul Ricard.
Daniel Ricciardo set the initial pace on the first set of tyres but would finish almost 0.3s behind the Silver Arrows by the end of the session in his Red Bull.
Ferrari had another typically subdued start to the weekend with Kimi Raikkonen fourth and Sebastian Vettel fifth, with the German again limiting his running to complete set-up work.
Unsurprisingly at a circuit where experience is limited, there were a few errors as drivers pushed and sometimes went beyond the limits. the most common was through Turn 6 as a change in wind direction caused several drivers to spin in the run-off area.
The biggest crash was for Marcus Ericsson, however, as the rear of his Sauber stepped out on the high-speed entry to Turn 12, sending the Swede into the tyre barrier side-on with a fire erupting in the engine bay shortly after.
Though his car his unlikely to be usable again in the afternoon due to the fire damage, some concern will also be given to Ericsson himself after a big impact likely left him pretty shaken.
Another problem many faced was with slow-moving cars on the wrong parts of the track with Raikkonen and Hamilton involved in near-misses on the Mistral Straight. Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen also narrowly avoided contact at Turn 4.
The French contingent of drivers, perhaps unexpectedly, were keen to get on with practice and featured well up the standings.
Romain Grosjean was the first in sixth for Haas, ahead of the second Red Bull of Max Verstappen. Pierre Gasly was also in the top 10 in P8 for Toro Rosso, though Esteban Ocon would be a little further back in 12th.
Charles Leclerc survived the rear of his Sauber snapping on the approach to the chicane on the Mistral, as the Monegasque took the escape road. He would still be a pretty competitive 13th fastest though.
Renault had a pretty disappointing start to their home race weekend with Carlos Sainz 11th and Nico Hulkenberg 18th. Their problems perhaps weren’t as bad as McLaren though, with Fernando Alonso 16th and Stoffel Vandoorne 19th.
The full standings from Practice 1 can be seen below:
