Charles Leclerc P8, Carlos Sainz P9 – Barcelona FP1 report

For the last 16 years, drivers and fans have called for one thing every time the Spanish Grand Prix comes around – ditch the chicane and race through the fast right-hand corners at the end of the lap.

Well finally, earlier this year, event organisers announced the return of the two, sweeping right-handers to conclude the 2.894-mile lap with the old Turn 14/15 chicane now gone. That means Charles Leclerc’s pole position time of a 1:18.750 last year is expected to be bettered by over five seconds from the final sector alone.

Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz of course had plenty of fans supporting them this weekend at their home grand prix, as the stage was set for the first free practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Given the characteristics of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Ferrari decided to finally introduce their first major upgrade package of the season with the clear goal of getting a solid read of their developments this weekend. The new sidepod design Ferrari brought this weekend moves them closer to Red Bull’s concept.

Away we went for the first practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, as most teams brought upgrades to this event, so this represented be a key 60 minutes to gain some important data and evaluate the technical innovations.

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As expected, Ferrari split their strategy to test out the new sidepods: Carlos Sainz used the old design while Charles Leclerc was running the new sidepods.

Max Verstappen set the early pace on a 1:17.425, which was 0.767s ahead of Lewis Hamilton. No surprise there, the Dutchman was very quick out of the box. Teams and drivers were also testing out Pirelli’s new tyres that are coming into use at the British GP next month. Two additional sets of the new Pirelli hard tyre were available to test in this session and Practice Two later on. Pirelli will introduce a new tougher specification of tyre at the British Grand Prix to cope with “extraordinary” advances in car performance.

Far higher than expected downforce levels have prompted a change, with a pole position time that was two seconds faster than last year at the Miami Grand Prix having highlighted the issue. Plenty of drivers were setting their early lap times on the test tyre, including the two Red Bulls at the top of the timesheet.

With 41 mins to go in FP1, Scuderia Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin had all been running around with sensors and aero paint on their cars, so were yet to post a representative lap. Lewis Hamilton was 10th at this stage, George Russell was 14th and Lando Norris had not set a lap time.

Max Verstappen followed Sergio Perez in complaining of the bouncing he was experiencing in the RB19: “Car is bouncing under braking into Turn 10 and in the last corner,” the championship leader said. The Dutchman remained top of the timesheet with a 1:15.945 – four tenths faster than Pierre Gasly who slotted into second in the Alpine. Not yet halfway through this session and Red Bull were heading out for some soft tyre runs. Sergio Perez, currently third, was first of the RB19s to head onto track with Max Verstappen following behind.

“There might be some reasons for that – maybe this track is not the track for these tyres so they’re maybe wanting a feeling for it for qualifying but then want it out of the way,” explained Naomi Schiff on the very early red-tyre run, while Martin Brundle talked about the new Ferrari sidepods: “There you can see the green flow-vis all over it. The different sidepods are much higher, less scalloped and it’s about downwash – about moving the air down onto the under tray. They have moved the radiator from the sidepod to the engine cover, so it’s all about controlling the air and trying to energise the lower rear wing beam, which works in tangent with the floor. That was the best part of half an hour Carlos Sainz has been out there.”

Sergio Perez initially posted a 1:15.3 to go quickest by half a second with his new soft tyres, but Max Verstappen then went three purple sectors to pound in a 1:14.606 and go quickest by seven tenths of a second. The Dutchman lifted slightly through the final corner, but that will almost certainly be flat out in qualifying.

With 25 minutes to go in FP1, in Ferrari’s back-to-back test on their old and new sidepods and updates, just 0.075s was splitting Carlos Sainz with the new bits and Charles Leclerc with the old parts. The Spaniard was P9 at that stage with Charles Leclerc P11.

Sky Sports F1’s Naomi Schiff explained: “The time difference is not worth very much. But there are other measurements that we can’t see like what the tyres look like, what the deg looks like, what’s the driveability. I expect the fuel loads will be the same as there’s no point doing back-to-back tests with different fuel loads. Even if it’s not giving them a lot of value in terms of lap times, it could be giving value in tyre degradation or driveability for the drivers.”

Carlos Sainz then completed his first lap on the soft tyres with Ferrari’s updates: he went third fastest, but 1.1 seconds down on Max Verstappen’s best effort of the day so far. The Spaniard kicked up a little bit of gravel out of Turn 12 but it otherwise looked a pretty tidy lap from him.

That was fascinating and bodes well for a more competitive weekend because Nyck de Vries went third, 0.898s behind Max Verstappen. You would think, if AlphaTauri are up there, everyone else had plenty of pace in hand. This was very much a data collecting session for Mercedes on their lap times so far as they sit 19th and 20th. Hamilton had been running the medium tyres and George Russell the prototype ones, but both switched to soft tyres for their flying laps of the day. George Russell went eighth with his first soft tyre lap, behind the two Ferraris and just ahead of Lando Norris’ McLaren.

Russell was half a second down on Max Verstappen through sector one alone and that had extended out to nearly a second by the end of sector two. He finished up 1.147s off the leading Red Bull.

Lewis Hamilton only went 11th fastest with his first soft effort, 1.239s off Max Verstappen. Meanwhile Kevin Magnussen put his Haas into P6 and it was a very impressive performance from the two Alpine drivers, De Vries and Magnussen as they filled positions 3-6 behind the two Red Bull cars.

Chequered flag out and that was the end of the first 60 minutes of running in Barcelona. And it was a statement of intent from Max Verstappen as his 1:14.606 saw him finish atop the timesheet by 0.768s from team-mate Sergio Perez. Esteban Ocon was third, 0.812s off Verstappen, with Nyck De Vries, Pierre Gasly completing a surprise top five. Charles Leclerc ended FP1 in P8, just ahead of his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz.