By Steven Luker
Practice Information
Max Verstappen set the pace during the opening practice for the Saudi Arabia grand prix. Verstappen was slotting ahead of Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin and his teammate Sergio Perez. Verstappen trailed the rival Mercedes of George Russell by three one hundredths of a second after the first soft tyre runs midway through the session the reigning world champion improved his time to a one minute and 29.659 second lap time.
Verstappen reminded the quickest as the final laps rolled in just under two tenths of a second clear of Alonso with Perez by a couple of hundreds of seconds further back and Russell rounding out the top four for the silver arrows.
The Ferrari team of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz was fifth and sixth respectively with the latter making it to the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Sainz missed Wednesday’s media day due to an illness.
Lando Norris was the fastest McLaren driver in seventh place and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Lance Stroll of Aston Martin both of them survived a brush with the wall early on and also the Williams Driver of Alexander Albon survived a brush with the wall.
The Kick Sauber team was led by Valtteri Bottas who was eleventh on the practice charts and his teammate of Zhou Guanyu was all the way back in 18th place after a wild save at the start with his soft compound tires losing a chunk of time as he backed out.
Daniel Ricciardo who is on the RB team was in 12th place with the medium tires followed by the Alpine of Esteban Ocon who was 13th and the Alpine team after a major shakeup and tons of staff changes that involved their Technical Director and Head of Aerodynamics move on.
Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastrai were a chuck away from the Williams and McLaren teammate and was P14 and P15 respectively. Yuki Tsunoda was 16th fastest and he was using a used set of Medium tyres to set his best lap.
First Practice Results
- Max Verstappen 1:29.659
- Fernando Alonso 1:29.845 +0.186s
- Sergio Perez 1:29.868 +0.209s
- George Russell 1:29.939 +0.280s
- Charles Leclerc 1:30.030 +0.371s
- Carlos Sainz 1:30.164 +0.505s
- Lando Norris 1:30.231 +0.572s
- Lewis Hamilton 1:30.236 +0.577s
- Lance Stroll 1:30.580 +0.921s
- Alexander Albon 1:30.747 +1.088s
- Valtteri Bottas 1:30.783 +1.124s
- Daniel Ricciardo 1:30.917 +1.258s
- Esteban Ocon 1:30.945 +1.286s
- Logan Sargeant 1:30.966 +1.307s
- Oscar Piastri 1:30.977 +1.318s
- Yuki Tsunoda 1:31.036 +1.377s
- Pierre Gasly 1:31.046 +1.387s
- Zhou Guanyu 1:31.131 +1.472s
- Nico Hulkenberg 1:31.411 +1.752s
- Kevin Magnussen 1:31.577 +1.918s
