The drivers will enjoy 71 laps of the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace on Sunday during the race and many more over the course of today and tomorrow, as the action got under way for the first free practice session ahead of the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo and we immediately had 17 of the 20 cars out at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.
This was always going to be a very busy session, with just one practice before qualifying this evening. A little bit of early jeopardy for Max Verstappen, as he momentarily ran out of track. We already saw all 20 cars on track and it was frantic as everyone was looking for track position. During FP1 we also had confirmation that Carlos Sainz will take a five-place grid penalty in Sunday’s race, after Ferrari installed a new engine to his F1-75 car. To be clear, that penalty will be for Sunday’s main race, rather than Saturday’s sprint, in which he will start wherever he qualifies later this evening!
It was a nervy moment for Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris as the Ferrari man felt he was forced to run wide at a very high speed by his former teammate.
Max Verstappen separated himself from Valtteri Bottas, going 0.232 clear of the Alfa Romeo with a 1:13.575. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton climbed to fourth, and was just fractionally behind Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez. The action momentarily calmed, as the cars came back into the pits after their first runs.
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Whilst the Red Bulls were leading the way, the two Haas drivers were then right on their tail, Kevin Magnussen +1.323 off the pace in third with Mick Schumacher +1.527 behind the leader in fourth. There were a few smiles in the Haas garage at that stage of FP1. With the Red Bulls then on soft tyres, their times come flying down: Sergio Perez went fastest with a 1:11.853, which was just 0.008s quicker than his team-mate Max Verstappen.
With 20 minutes left of FP1, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc completed their fast runs and moved third and fourth behind the two Red Bull drivers.
Carlos Sainz went up to third, about a quarter of a second back from the RB18 cars, while his Maranello team-mate was about the same distance back in fourth. Interestingly, the Ferraris did those times of medium tyres, which suggests there was room for further improvement. Meanwhile, Mercedes were either a long way off the pace or had yet to show their hand, with George Russell 15th and Lewis Hamilton 17th.
George Russell provided a bit of encouragement for Mercedes by going fourth, but was still 0.3s back from the Red Bulls despite having done his lap on soft tyres on a far more evolved track. Perhaps more impressive was the effort of Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher, who slotted in behind Russell in fifth. In a similar fashion to Kevin Magnussen a little earlier, Lewis Hamilton’s flying lap was brought to a halt as he rode the kerb and lost balance and speed. However, there was some real improvement at Aston Martin as Sebastian Vettel moves up to fifth, just +0.304s off the pace.
Both Ferrari F1-75 cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz hit the track for a flying lap in the final stages of FP1: the Spaniard went P4, a thousandth ahead of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc put in a purple middle sector on the way to P2 by 4 thousandths, splitting the Red Bull cars. It was certainly close – have we got three teams in the fight for pole today?
The top three of Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen ended first practice at Interlagos separated by just eight thousandths of a second. That leaves plenty of intrigue ahead of qualifying, and with rain clouds gathering at Interlagos, things are only likely to get more interesting!
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