Pierre Gasly put Alpine on top in the first practice session for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with McLaren and Ferrari close behind.
On a hot track, with asphalt temperatures nudging 50C, Lando Norris initially led the running. Most of his rivals were unable to beat his time of 1’29.246.
But a superb run through the final sector for Gasly propelled him to the top by a mere seven-thousandths of a second. Charles Leclerc was only seven-hundredths of a second behind, putting his Ferrari in third place. Towards the end of the session he warned Ferrari he had touched the wall at turn four.
The top trio’s team mates were spread across the rest of the timesheet. Last week’s race winner Oscar Piastri was a strong fourth, within a tenth of a second of his team mate. Lewis Hamilton continued to chip away in his Ferrari but ended up half a second off Leclerc in eighth.
Jack Doohan was only 16th in the second Alpine, almost a second off the pace. Unlike his team mate, he has not taken a new engine this weekend. All four Honda RBPT drivers also have new motors.
Both Williams drivers were well inside the top 10, led by Alexander Albon in fifth. Carlos Sainz Jnr, seventh, was not pleased by how his former team respected blue flags on a track with many blind, high-speed corners. “Please someone tell the Ferrari not to let people by there, it’s so dangerous,” he said.
The two FW47s were split by George Russell’s Mercedes. He showed strong pace on the medium rubber early on but was troubled by a persistent braking problem towards the end of the session, which led him to pit early.
Behind Hamilton, the two Red Bull drivers completed the top 10. As usual, Max Verstappen sounded very unhappy with his car, reporting he was having difficulty in the slow turn one-two chicane early in the session, then describing his car as “very loose in the high-speed” later on.
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While every driver set a time on softs, Racing Bulls left it until the final 10 minutes to do their first run on the softest rubber. Liam Lawson has been summoned to the stewards for crossing the painted area on the approach to the pit lane in contravention of the race director’s guidelines.
2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Grand Prix first practice result
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