Leclerc leads Ferrari one-two in busy start to practice in Spain

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr put Ferrari on top of the times during the first practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

Championship leader Leclerc was less than a tenth of a second faster than team mate Sainz, with Max Verstappen third quickest in the Red Bull during a busy first hour of running.

Ambient temperatures were barely below 30C as the opening session of the weekend got underway. There were several unfamiliar names on the timing screens during the hour. Formula E world champion Nyck de Vries stepped into Alex Albon’s Williams, Formula 2 driver Juri Vips took over Sergio Perez’s Red Bull and Robert Kubica was given Zhou Guanyu’s Alfa Romeo for the session.

With teams having brought more upgrades to Spain than any other grand prix so far in 2022, it was not surprising to see plenty of track activity from the moment the lights at the end of the pit lane turned green.

With the warm track temperatures, the majority of drivers were sent out on the C1 compound hard tyres – the hardest in Pirelli’s range of five. Max Verstappen put his Red Bull quickest in the early running, pitting to swap between a different specification front wing for a back-to-back comparison.

Lewis Hamilton narrowly avoided contact with Fernando Alonso approaching turn 13 as the Mercedes passed the Alpine, who was on an in-lap. Hamilton had to take to the gravel to squeeze by Alonso, with the stewards announcing they would investigate the incident after the session.

Hamilton’s Mercedes team mate George Russell also had traffic trouble in the final sector, coming across Juri Vips through the long right hander of turn 12 with Russell audibly upset at the Red Bull over team radio.

In the second half of the session, teams opted to start running on the soft tyres. Ferrari used the faster rubber to good effect, with Leclerc setting a 1’19.828 to go quickest overall, with Sainz just under eight-hundredths behind his team mate. Verstappen’s best lap on the soft tyres was over three tenths slower than his championship rival in third.

Leclerc’s benchmark time lasted until the end, leaving Ferrari first and second at the top of the times through the first session of the weekend. Russell was fourth fastest in the Mercedes, four tenths away from Verstappen in third. Alonso was fifth, just fractions of a second ahead of Hamilton. Lando Norris, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top ten for McLaren and AlphaTauri.

Robert Kubica ended his afternoon in 13th ahead of Valtteri Bottas down in 17th place. Nyck de Vries was faster than Nicholas Latifi, the Williams pair down in 18th and 19th ahead of Vips, who ended his first grand prix session in 20th after long runs on the hard compound tyres.

2022 Spanish Grand Prix first practice result

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Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	F1-75	1’19.828		27
2	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	F1-75	1’19.907	0.079	27
3	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	RB18	1’20.164	0.336	28
4	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W13	1’20.590	0.762	28
5	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	A522	1’20.768	0.940	24
6	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W13	1’20.811	0.983	27
7	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL36	1’21.279	1.451	24
8	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT03	1’21.422	1.594	23
9	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL36	1’21.737	1.909	23
10	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT03	1’21.814	1.986	28
11	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A522	1’21.891	2.063	26
12	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR22	1’21.920	2.092	23
13	88	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C42	1’21.975	2.147	20
14	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-22	1’22.089	2.261	16
15	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	VF-22	1’22.146	2.318	21
16	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR22	1’22.164	2.336	20
17	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C42	1’22.614	2.786	25
18	45	Nyck de Vries	Williams-Mercedes	FW44	1’22.920	3.092	28
19	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	FW44	1’23.011	3.183	27
20	36	Juri Vips	Red Bull	RB18	1’24.138	4.310	23

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2022 Spanish Grand Prix

• Q&A: Kubica ‘shocked’ by ‘completely different’ Alfa Romeo in Spain
• How heat and traffic trouble left F1 fans fuming after the Spanish Grand Prix
• Mercedes not yet certain their porpoising problem has “disappeared”
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• Ricciardo hoping to find an explanation for Spanish GP pace deficit to Norris

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