Gasly surprises and marginally defeats Norris, Verstappen in P9 with new PU components

Oscar Piastri finished in P4 ahead of Alex Albon and George Russell, after the Australian made a mistake on his quickest lap.

With new engine components fitted in their cars for the second weekend in a row, Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda finished in P9 and P10 respectively, just behind of Lewis Hamilton.

Most of the grid immediately went out as the lights turned green at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Other than Carlos Sainz and the two Haas drivers, they chose the medium tyres to start things off this Friday in hot conditions.

During the first 10 minutes, there were incidents of drivers locking up hard. Oliver Bearman locked up hard into Turn 1. Minutes later, Jack Doohan did the same in the final corner, and Gabriel Bortoleto also did the same.

15 minutes into the session, Piastri also reported over the team radio that he briefly touched the wall, and asked for a check.

After 20 minutes, Russell led the session ahead of Norris and Verstappen with a 1:29.6.

Roughly halfway through the session, after starting on the hards, it was Sainz who first put on the soft, but his lap was slower than Russell's after his first attempt on the quickest compound.

After the frontrunners completed their first runs of the soft tyres, Norris took the lead with a 1.29.2, and was ahead of Russell and Piastri. The Australian made a mistake on his lap.

With 20 minutes to go, it was Pierre Gasly who took the lead after a great lap with the Alpine, crossing the line marginally quicker than Norris did.

With 15 minutes to go, Sainz asked his current team Williams to send a message to his ex-team Ferrari to not let people pass them on flying laps in the section that consists of Turns 7-10.

The session concluded with more drivers completing more laps on the soft tyres, but no one improved, other than the Racing Bulls drivers, who set their quickest lap times later than the rest.