#Vettel leads @ScuderiaFerrari 1-2 in FP1. #F1 #GermanGP

Sebastian Vettel topped his home Grand Prix opening practice session at the Hockenheimring leading team-mate Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari one-two.

Vettel used the red-branded C4 soft compound to take the top of the time-sheets by 0.255 in the final twenty minutes off Ferrari team-mate Leclerc with a benchmark of a 1:14.013.

Leclerc also used the same tyre to relegate Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to third with both Silver Arrow’s drivers using the yellow C3 mediums to post their best efforts despite running the softs in the first half of the 90 minute session.

Hamilton who was 0.302 adrift of Vettel’s benchmark, at first ended up behind team-mate Valtteri Bottas when on the softer rubber but then wound up almost three tenths quicker than the Finn on softs.

This also allowed Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen to split the Mercedes duo and was just 0.015 seconds behind the championship leader in fourth.

Bottas ended his morning after taking an off-track excursion into the gravel trap at turn 12 after locking up his W10 EQ Power+ with two minutes remaining, but managed to return back to the pits and scattered gravel over the track as he went. The Finn completed the top five.

The other Honda-powered Red Bull RB15 of Pierre Gasly struggled in the early part of FP1 with vibration issues, but the Frenchman made his way to finish sixth on the softs with an hour remaining.

McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, who spent most of the early stages in the session at the top while on the C1 harder compounds, ended best-of-the-rest in seventh place just before the half-an-hour mark when he ran the softer rubber.

That put the Spaniard 0.012 seconds ahead of eighth-placed Haas of Romain Grosjean, who had set his time just before Sainz.

Grosjean was running the Australian GP-spec version of VF-19, as the Banbury-Kannapolis outfit continued their back-to-back experiment from the last round at Silverstone with Kevin Magnussen running the upgraded and latest version.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, running the newly packaged RP19 was ninth quickest having run the session on mediums and comfortably ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo who rounded out the top ten.

Ricciardo also suffered a spin at the first corner in his R.S.19 racer but was able to recover and continue on.

The other Racing Point of Sergio Perez ended the morning in 11th, also using mediums and finished ahead of McLaren’s 12th-placed Lando Norris.

The aforementioned Magnussen came home 13th after returning to the track shortly after bringing the session’s sole red flag out for eight minutes when the Dane’s VF-19 stopped at the stadium section.

The issue was with the car’s sensor and he reported over the radio “I have some sort of alarm but no power” – and after his car was brought back to pit-lane, Magnussen was ready to head out again.

Toro Rosso’s pairing followed next with Daniil Kvyat taking 14th and Alexander Albon 15th respectively and in-front of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg who was 16th.

The two Alfa Romeo Racing C38’s were next with Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi 17th and 18th respectively while the two ROKiT Williams Racing FW42’s of Robert Kubica and George Russell bringing up the rear.

You can read the full Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz Grosser Preis Von Deutschland 2019 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1010/germany/practice-1.html

You can also catch up on this weekend’s preview at the link: #F1 @Mercedes-Benz Grosser Preis Von Deutschland 2019 Preview – #GermanGP