F1 | Saudi Arabian GP | Hamilton tops the first practice session in Jeddah, Verstappen and Bottas close behind
After dominating most of the session on hards, Verstappen closes FP1 in P2 between the silver arrows with Gasly and Giovinazzi completing the top 5.
First time out for F1 in Jeddah this Friday afternoon, in a circuit that was put together barely on time to accommodate the single seaters of Formula 2 for a quite troubled session. Cars head out on track featuring a tribute for Sir Frank Williams who passed away earlier this week and Max Verstappen sets the pace with a 1.33.614s.
The Dutchman keeps on improving while Bottas, Norris and Hamilton alternate behind him with the McLaren seeming slightly faster than the silver arrows. Fifteen minutes into the session he is the first to get into the 1m30s bracket on hard tyres, while Lewis Hamilton is 2.3 s slower on softs. Behind them are Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc, while Ocon’s Alpine seems to be struggling with its rear tyres.
Halfway through the session Verstappen keeps on getting faster, with Hamilton behind despite going purple in the second sector, followed by Bottas, Norris, Leclerc, Gasly, Vettel, Ocon, Russell and Ricciardo. Only P14 and P17 respectively for Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez.
Verstappen comes into the garage to get the bottom of his Red Bull checked after running wide over the kerbs at Turn 22, but returns on track shortly after. Kimi Raikkonen narrowly avoids touching the wall in the final corner and as we enter the last 15 minutes of FP1 Hamilton moves to the top closing his lap in a 1m29.786s. His teammate Valtteri Bottas is behind him and appears to be enjoying the circuit quite a bit.
"****** this track is cool!" - @ValtteriBottas
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 3, 2021
Jeddah's newest fan goes quickest with a time of 1:30.009 ⏱#SaudiArabianGP 🇸🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/jtWJDN4akW
A good session for Mick Schumacher and Antonio Giovinazzi as well, as the Haas is in 14th place ahead of Sergio Perez and the Italian has taken his Alfa Romeo up to P5. A late improvement for Alpine, that moves to P9 with Alonso after staying far out of the top 10 for most of the session. While Verstappen seemed a lot quicker on hards, he is yet to find a good lap on softs, Checo progresses to P11 with the softest compound. Verstappen lock up and runs wide at Turn 1 almost touching Ocon who manages to avoid the RedBull. As the chequered flag is waved Hamilton tops the timesheet with a 1m29.786s, 0.056s ahead of Verstappen who is followed by Bottas in P3.
Full classification from FP1 in Jeddah 👇
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 3, 2021
Very little to choose between our title contenders! #SaudiArabianGP 🇸🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/msr5WnyQU9
