Ferrari FP1 report: Carlos Sainz P2, Charles Leclerc P5

Ferrari FP1 report: Carlos Sainz P2, Charles Leclerc P5 | 2022 F1 Canadian GP. Ferrari FP1 report.

The sun was shining, crowds were in the stands and it was all systems go, with the first cars out for the first free practice session for the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix, at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

There was a flurry of activity as all of the drivers were desperate to get out on track, because a rain cloud was threatening close by!

Max Verstappen set the early tempo with a +1:17.991 on the medium tyres, while Charles Leclerc had elected to go out on the softs and was almost four seconds behind the Red Bull driver. The Monegasque was the only driver out on track with softs. Porpoising has been a hot topic of debate so far this weekend – and footage on board Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari showed some extreme bouncing already here in Canada.

The rain cloud that threatened earlier and got every car out of the pit lane early, gradually deceased to be a threat. It clearly got the memo that these drivers wanted to enjoy some extended runs. After some mid-session setup changes, the Ferrari cars were back on track. First Charles Leclerc put himself in between the Red Bull cars in second, but he was swiftly knocked down to third as his team-mate Carlos Sainz went fastest. The Spaniard did a 1:15.441, nearly 0.2s quicker than Sergio Perez’s best effort.

But Ferrari weren’t top of the timesheet for long. Max Verstappen was back out on track after sorting his roll bar issue and after his first push lap on soft tyres, went three tenths quicker than Carlos Sainz.

Lewis Hamilton was back out on track after undergoing what appeared to be some quite major setup changes in the Mercedes garage. His first flying lap saw him improve from P15 to P6, but he wasn’t sixth for very long: as has been the case so often this season, George Russell went faster than his Mercedes team-mate – and Lance Stroll – to go fifth.

With the threat of rain looming over Practice Two later, teams were taking the opportunity to do some longer running at the end of this first practice session. It therefore looked like Max Verstappen would end fastest, but he was not very happy and was complaining to his mechanic about ‘clipping’, which Karun Chandhok explained is to do with the loss of electrical charge.