Miami GP: Verstappen tops FP1 as Leclerc spins out
03/05/2024 19:47
Red Bull's Max Verstappen set the fastest time in Friday's single practice for the Miami Grand Prix, the Red Bull charger concluding the tricky session just 0.105s ahead of the McLaren of Oscar Piastri.
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz was third but it was a mixed session for the Scuderia, with Charles Leclerc forced out of practice after just a handful of laps following a spin that left his car stranded in the middle of the track and unable to rejoin the proceedings.
Behind the top-three, Mercedes George Russell, Aston Martin's Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez rounded off the top-six contenders.
With this weekend's action around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami including a Sprint event, teams were faced with a busy and all-important single practice session.
The action kicked off under very warm conditions, with the ambient air at 29°C and tarmac temps set at 49°C and rising. A very mild 10% risk of rain was anything but a worry for teams.
There were plenty of upgrades up and down the pitlane, but over at McLaren, from front to back, changes were plentiful on team papaya's MCL38. Over at Williams, the British outfit finally has a spare chassis in its crates, which it obviously hopes it will not need.
Lewis Hamilton posted the first benchmark time to go top on the medium tyre, but the Mercedes driver was quickly overhauled by Verstappen, while Perez slotted into third.
Meanwhile, Leclerc was seen facing the wrong way at Turn 16, the Monegasque indulging in an apparent harmless spin on the exit of the corner.
However, more worrying was the fact that the Ferrari driver was unable to turn himself around, and resorted to exiting his SF-24 which signalled the end of his only practice session of the weekend.
Leclerc was therefore set to head into sprint qualifying with just three and a half laps under his belt!
The red flag forced a ten-minute pause on teams, but traffic quickly swelled when the track went green, with Perez – still on the mediums – going fastest and dropping the benchmark to 1m29.632s.
The majority of drivers continued to stick to the hard compound rubber, but both Mercedes drivers preferred the medium which positioned Hamilton and Russell just behind Perez.
However, while Leclerc was left to lament his costly mistake, Sainz shot to the top with a 1m29.346s that the Spaniard hammered in on the hard tyre.
With 20 minutes to go, McLaren's chargers upped the pace, with Norris and Piastri relying on the hard tyre to seize P2 and P4.
Most drivers were still focused on long runs as the session entered its final quarter. However, Russell and Hamilton were takers for a flyer on softs and the former duly went top while the latter clocked in third, the pair sandwiching Sainz.
But Russell's lead was short-lived as the soft-shod Red Bulls of Verstappen and Perez moved ahead. Changes were fast and furious among the front-runners although Verstappen remained out of reach.
But Piastri settled into second ahead of Sainz, Russell, Stroll and Perez who completed the top-six. Thereafter followed, Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly who put both Alpine's in the top-ten.
Norris and Aston's Fernando Alonso were the outliers in the second half of the field, while it was a wasted session for Leclerc.
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