Russell leads Mercedes 1-2 in opening practice

Kevin Magnussen He led the pack at the start of the early laps on the medium and hard tyres. Therefore, Dane used his rubber to yellow his wall and he established his first place benchmark with a time of 1:36.852.

Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg After that, move forward with medium tires and hard tires respectively, Lewis Hamilton Finished the opening five minutes of the hour-long session with a fastest time of 1:34.527.

But it didn’t last long either. Verstappen was fastest on his second attempt at the first flyer going into the turn 1 run-off on the first attempt, unlike Hamilton who used a hard at this stage.

Times continued to drop as drivers completed their first exploratory stints, with moments when they went off the track at Turns 1 and 11 at the end of the long, winding back straight, struggling for grip on the new surface.

During this period, Nick de Vries lost behind him Alpha Tauri Spin midway through the long, tight Turn 12, then turn 12 right. Carlos Sainz It was the fastest at 1 minute 33 seconds 823.

Hamilton was even quicker after that, with Verstappen on the same set of hardware setting a time of 1:32.465.

The pack then pitted, and after activity calmed down a bit, many of the drivers switched to the soft for the first time, with Hulkenberg the first to return to the top of the time just before the halfway point with a time of 1:31.392.

After that, Verstappen and Perez completed their first runs on the soft, the latter having to catch a large oversteer snap between high-speed turns 4/5 in a flowing section early in the lap. Despite this, he beat Hulkenberg with a time of 1:31.054. Around Hard Rock Stadium.

However, Perez was unable to beat Hulkenberg at this stage, leaving Red Bull in third behind Haas. This was the focus at the time, as Hulkenberg crashed at turn 3 on his third flying lap attempt on the same soft set.

Hulkenberg, who was just short of his personal best in the second soft flyer, went slightly off-line at Turn 3 and quickly lost the rear of his car, spinning and slamming his right side into the wall, picking up debris. threw it on the track. .

The session was interrupted for eight minutes as Hulkenberg’s car had to recover from a damaged front right wheel.

As FP1 resumed before the final quarter, Verstappen returned to action on the soft, improving his first-place benchmark to 1:30.549.

Leclerc then moved up to second and was demoted to Sainz minutes later. Fernando Alonso Falls fourth.

Heading into the final five minutes, Leclerc made his second run on the soft and was 0.253s slower than Verstappen, but was back in front of Sainz. At 23, he had to go into the turn one run-off.

As Ferrari prepared for their third attempt on the softs, mercedes Russell lost a good amount of time early on as he decided to remove a development steering piece that was judged to be too heavy based on early feedback.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14

Photo credit: Mark Sutton / motorsport images

After the red flag, the Mercedes driver, who had initially stayed at Medium, had his turn shuffled and was only kept from the back of the field by de Vries, who did not reappear after completing ten laps on hard. FP1 driver.

With Hamilton leading Russell and Leclerc pushing again, the seven-time world champion jumped from 19th to 1st with a time of 1:30.337.

Leclerc then jumped ahead of Verstappen with a time of 1:30.449 to take second place. Russell also completed the soft flyer as he jumped from 19th to 1st, passing Hamilton in 1:30.125.

Sainz’s third soft run set a personal best just before the end of the session, but he was unable to beat Verstappen’s fourth place, and Red Bull returned to the hard tires in the final minutes.

Pierre Guthrie After catching a big snap at Turn 2 in the second half, I had a wild moment in the Turn 3 run-off, but ended up in 6th. alpine before Alonso.

Lance Stroll Eighth behind his Aston Martin teammate, Hulkenberg finished ninth despite being sent off.

Ocon rounded out the top ten, while Double Baku winner Perez remained in eleventh place, not going any faster after his first run on the softs.

Leclerc reported a “slow shift” on the lap after the checkered flag.

F1 Miami GP – FP1 Results