Charles Leclerc led teammate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari dominated Practice 1 at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Heavy rain in the buildup forced all the drivers onto full wet tyres for the first half of the session as they scrambled for grip around Imola’s iconic corners.
Unsurprisingly this led to plenty of errors with many going off at Acque Minerali, the Variante Alta chicane and Rivazza 1.
? RED FLAG ?
Lando Norris finds himself beached in the gravel at Turn 12 ❌
Luckily the McLaren driver is able to drive out and return to the pits #ImolaGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Ua7YLtXmYr
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 22, 2022
There would be only one red flag though, caused by Lando Norris sliding off late on as conditions improved for intermediates.
Max Verstappen set the early pace, as he often does, but it didn’t take long for Ferrari to quickly move in front.
Sainz would set a blistering pace after the drivers switched to the shallower grooved inters, only for Leclerc to usurp him just before the brief stoppage, posting a 1m29.402s to lead by almost 0.9s.
Verstappen had some traffic issues just as the best times were being set and would ultimately finish 1.5s off the pace in third for Red Bull.
It’s all going “swimmingly” in #FP1 ?
P4 Kevin ⏱ 1:32.439
P5 Mick ⏱ 1:32.988#HaasF1 #ImolaGP pic.twitter.com/00u01arYHH— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) April 22, 2022
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Haas, like Ferrari, enjoyed the wet conditions with Kevin Magnussen fourth and Mick Schumacher fifth, albeit over three seconds back from Leclerc.
Sergio Perez was sixth ahead of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, who was the first driver to make the change to intermediates.
Yuki Tsunoda claimed ninth and George Russell 10th, though his Mercedes was porpoising massively on the main straight as the speeds began to increase.
The Briton’s teammate Lewis Hamilton was only 18th as he only had one flying lap on the inters due to the red flag and ran a lower downforce setup on his car.
Bottas is in the barrier! ?
Driver is OK, however he is unable to drive back to the pits #ImolaGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/BdqZJ2tahT
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 22, 2022
Other notable drivers included Valtteri Bottas, who found the barriers after the chequered flag, in 11th, ahead of Pierre Gasly in 12th.
The two McLarens were a tenth apart in 14th and 15th, ahead of Lance Stroll and Alex Albon.
Zhou Guanyu and Nicholas Latifi brought up the timesheets, the Canadian ending 10 seconds slower than Leclerc in P1.
With the Sprint format being used at Imola this weekend, qualifying is up next for teams later on Friday.
Full results from practice can be seen below:
A mega @ScuderiaFerrari performance for the opening practice session in Imola! #ImolaGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/mD30OONeOa
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 22, 2022