Spanish GP: Verstappen enjoys big advantage in Practice 1

Max Verstappen comfortably led the way in a busy first practice session at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The reigning champion managed an impressive 1m14.606s on the soft tyres, finishing almost 0.8s clear of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez.

Verstappen’s time was also over five seconds faster than the benchmark time from FP1 last year after the chicane in the final sector was removed at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Session Review

Despite gathering clouds in the distance, sunshine beamed over the track to begin the action, with home hero Fernando Alonso the first car on the circuit.

Most drivers began work on an unmarked prototype tyre, a hard compound of the new, tougher tyres set to be introduced at the British GP.

Red Bull wasted little time in going fastest with Verstappen and Perez taking turns at the top of the timesheet.

The return of the original high-speed final two corners in Barcelona brought its own challenge, with several drivers complaining of bouncing at the entry of the last turn.

After a brief stint on mediums, the Red Bull pair switched to the soft tyre with Verstappen setting his rapid table-topping time of 1m14.6s.

The rest took their time in following suit as most teams focused on gathering data with new upgrades on the first permanent racetrack since Bahrain.

Among them was Ferrari who split their cars between Carlos Sainz running a heavily revised package, including new sidepods that follow more of an Alpine-style design.

Yet by the end, it was teammate Charles Leclerc with the old-spec car who finished fractionally ahead as the two Prancing Horses sat eighth and ninth.

Likewise, Mercedes also had their first chance to run their updated W14 on a representative circuit after introducing the upgrades last weekend in Monaco.

Late soft tyre runs would promote George Russell up to 10th and Lewis Hamilton only 12th in the final order.

Instead, it was Alpine who was Red Bull’s closest challenger as Esteban Ocon was just half a second behind Perez in third and Pierre Gasly in fifth.

Nyck de Vries sat a strong fourth for AlphaTauri, indicating how little most of the grid was pushing during Practice 1.

Alonso had a quiet session in sixth, ahead of Kevin Magnussen in seventh.

Lando Norris followed the Ferraris and Russell in 11th, with Zhou Guanyu behind Hamilton in 13th.

Yuki Tsunoda was 14th, while Lance Stroll finished 15th. Valtteri Bottas claimed 16th ahead of Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg.

The Williams pair of Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon brought up the grid.