Lando Norris picked up from Monaco as he led from Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in FP1 at the F1 Barcelona GP.
McLaren led the charge yet again in Monaco and remain the clear favourites for the final stages of the European triple header.
However, Ferrari will be looking to hold onto the momentum they found in Monaco. Verstappen will be fighting to win again and Mercedes will be looking to get back on track after a difficult weekend. So it won’t be an easy fight for any team.
With technical changes being brought making the front wings stiffer in high speed corners, there are a lot of questions surrounding the effect this will have on the teams. While teams have downplayed the impact, only time on track will tell.
Green Flag
Lando Norris was the first car to make their way out on track, followed closely by his teammate Piastri. Norris crossed the line first with a time of 1:16. However, as the grid filed out and completed fast laps, the times dropped.
Fernando Alonso crossed the line with a 1:15.480 in his Aston Martin, with Norris falling in line behind, just 0.153 seconds off the Spaniard’s pace.
Verstappen has struggled with the RB20 in the early stages of the season, but he has managed to drag the machinery onto the top step of the podium despite the difficulties.
He put his Red Bull machinery third fastest as he crossed the line, but he missed out on the top spot by 0.200 seconds. Norris went fastest again with a 15:259.
Many teams were using the free practice to run aero rakes on the cars, testing the changed front wings.
Charles Leclerc crossed the line to go fourth fastest. The Monégasque had a strong weekend in Monaco, narrowly missing out on back to back wins. But he was clear that he believes his home race was an outlier, and he has to lower expectations once again for this weekend.
Second half of the session
Both Ferrari’s left the pits on the soft tyres, ready to test out the qualifying simulations. One of the reason Barcelona is such a tricky track is the tyre temperatures. If the tyres have the perfect temperature in sector 1, they’re struggling by the final sector.
On the soft compound, Charles Leclerc cross the line fastest, but it was then beaten by Verstappen with a 1:14.085. Leclerc was only 0.153 off the Red Bull’s pace, and when Hamilton completed his lap, he was only 0.011 off of Verstappen.
However, McLaren quickly reminded drivers of the current order with three purple sectors and a three-tenths advantage on the field as Norris completed his lap.
At a track where tyre temperature is so important, McLaren’s ability to manage their tyre degradation gives them a significant advantage.
Victor Martins was making his Formula 1 debut for Williams in Alex Albon’s car. He was six tenths off of Carlos Sainz, but it was unclear on what set up he was running in the FW47.
Final five minutes
In the final stages of the session, McLaren were opting to test out some longer race simulations on the soft compound tyres.
Verstappen came out of the pits and started a race run on the soft compound tyres, with lap times roughly six seconds away from the qualifying laps.
Both Fernando Alonso and Franco Colapinto’s session ended early with issues for the cars, leaving them in the pits.
Norris final time of 1:13.718 remained unbeaten, with Verstappen and the two Ferraris closely behind. For Ferrari, the goal with be to remain as high as FP1 into the next practice sessions and qualifying.
Piastri ended the session in fifth, five tenths away from his teammate.
Full Results:
- L. Norris
- M. Verstappen
- L. Hamilton
- C. Leclerc
- O. Piastri
- L. Lawson
- O. Bearman
- I. Hadjar
- Y. Tsunoda
- P. Gasly
- G. Russell
- L. Stroll
- F. Alonso
- N. Hülkenberg
- C. Sainz
- G. Bortoleto
- R. Hirakawa
- K. Antonelli
- V. Martins
- F. Colapinto
