#BrazilGP FP1: @SChecoPerez quickest ahead of @CharlesLeclerc. #F1 #SaoPauloGP

Perez Brazil GP FP1 – Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was narrowly quickest of both Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and team-mate Max Verstappen in the opening FP1 session before qualifying at the Brazil GP as the top three were covered by just under 0.008 seconds.

 

 

Perez ended up only 0.004 seconds in-front of Leclerc with Red Bull team-mate Verstappen third and a further 0.008 down.

 

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was fourth and Mercedes duo Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell who completed the top six.

 

With just one hour of practice running to get in before qualifying to decide the grid for the final 100km F1 Sprint of the year, the field headed out at once with their stints split across the hard and medium tyres.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen lead the pack out and posted the first benchmark of a 1:16.443 on the C2 white side-walled harder compounds before a flurry of efforts demoted the Dane back.

 

After Hamilton had bettered his former team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon on their respective opening stints, Perez lowered the benchmark under the 1:15’s bracket just before the end of the first five of proceedings.

 

The Mexican then beat his first effort of a 1:14.616 with a 1:14.447 on his next tour on the harder rubber, before team-mate Verstappen, who aborted his opening flying lap having went off at turn four, went ahead.

 

Verstappen’s 1:14.404 benchmark stood as the best time from the harder tyre runners for a few moments before Bottas set the fastest time on the C3 yellow-marked mediums just before the end of the ten minute mark with a 1:13.807.

 

As Verstappen continued to tour on the hards he bettered the Alfa Romeo driver’s effort again with a 1:13.646 and then a 1:13.575 as the opening 15 of proceedings concluded and the field returned to the pits for adjustments.

 

A lull in track action followed before Perez emerged first on the quicker C4 red-branded softer tyres with 25 minutes run.

 

The Red Bull driver jumped ahead setting a 1:11.853 despite running hard over the kerbs in-between turns four and five and almost bottoming out, as Perez also enjoyed a near-empty track as most of his rivals remained in their respective garages.

 

Verstappen was the next driver to complete a soft’s hot-lap at the midway point of the session, with the newly crowned two-time world champion posting a purple first sector before dropping back compared to his Red Bull team-mate and ended up a very small 0.008 seconds behind on a 1:11.861, complaining that his RB18 racer “doesn’t turn” as he was “just waiting on the fronts.”

 

Here the teams diverged on their running programmes, with Ferrari and Mercedes sending Leclerc and Hamilton back out on mediums, whilst Sainz remained in the pits, as did Russell at first before he also re-emerged on the C3 mediums.

 

Leclerc used his mediums to end up 0.5 off the pace before Perez went again for another run on the softs, which ended up just under a tenth slower than his leading effort.

 

Just after Sainz moved ahead of team-mate Leclerc to run in third and 0.2 seconds slower than Perez, but still using the medium compounds, Verstappen completed a second softs-stint after making changes in the pits, but left the Dutchman nearly a quarter-of-a-second off his time-topping team-mate.

 

Heading into the final quarter of opening practice, with the Ferrari drivers still touring the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on the mediums, Russell moved up to fourth on his soft tyre run – as he and Mercedes team-mate Hamilton having been near the rear of the classifications with their harder tyre efforts.

 

Russell’s time was 0.336 slower than Perez, who, along with Verstappen were undertaking a high-fuel stint on the softs as the session approached it’s end.

 

With under ten minutes left on the clock, Hamilton went for his first run on the softs, but had to abort it after running too wide over the exit kerbs at turn seven and locking up his front-left on the approach to turn eight and slid deep.

 

After his tour, Russell, having done a cool-down lap on his softer rubber, went again to jump ahead of Sainz’s best effort on the mediums to close within 0.212 seconds off Perez’s benchmark.

 

Hamilton prepared for another run on the softs and then on his second flying lap jumped his team-mate to sit 0.187 off the top effort.

 

Then with five minutes left, the Ferrari pairing ran the softs.

 

Sainz went first, winding up a very narrow 0.001 seconds ahead of Hamilton in third, before both were relegated by Leclerc’s best time on his initial effort on the softer tyre.

 

Having posted a personal best effort in the second sector, which had him up on Perez’s leading effort, Leclerc lost almost a quarter-of-a-second in the last sector to end up second by a small whisker of 0.004 seconds with a 1:11.857.

 

Leclerc was not done, going for one last flyer in the closing stages, but on a second hot-lap he was a fraction-slower than his own personal best to remain just off P1.

 

His late improvements meant Verstappen rounded out the top three ahead of Sainz and the Mercedes duo, who were followed by Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher who were seventh and eighth respectively as the aforementioned Bottas and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly completed the top ten.

 

In a notable moment of Free Practice 1, the early stages saw Sainz bounce off the exit kerb of turn three going around the outside of McLaren’s Lando Norris in a move that annoyed the Ferrari driver.

 

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon were 11th and 13th respectively as Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon split the duo in 13th whilst Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was 15th.

 

McLaren’s Lando Norris placed 15th and ahead of Haas F1 Team’s Magnussen who took 16th and Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi who ended the session 17th.

 

Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu was 18th and in-front of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo who brought up the rear.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Heineken Grande Premio De Sao Paulo 2022 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1137/brazil/practice-1.html

 

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#Formula1 @Heineken Grande Premio De Sao Paulo 2022 Preview. #F1 #BrazilGP