Norris tops FP1 as Leclerc brands his Ferrari car "horrendous"

The session featured one brief red flag period. A piece of debris was left on the racing line and was, therefore, in a dangerous position. The marshals needed to put out the red flag to safely remove the piece of debris. The red flag did cause a disruption in the soft tyre runs, but nothing too troublesome for the teams and drivers.

McLaren and Red Bull had both cars in the top six, giving an early indication as to who might be strongest this weekend in Barcelona. Ferrari's P3 with Sainz provided a glimmer of hope for the Italian team, and Mercedes were in and around the top places.

Bearman, who seems likely to take a Haas seat next season, completed another one of the mandatory rookie practice sessions for Haas. The Brit had a smooth session and completed more than 20 laps, though he did finish slightly behind Kevin Magnussen.

How FP1 happened in Spain

The first free practice at the Spanish Grand Prix is usually one of the most highly anticipated practice sessions of the whole season due to teams bringing a range of upgrades. The event in Barcelona falls later in the calendar this year but upgrades still appeared for most teams. None more so than Ferrari who aim to bring some more rear downforce. The Italian team started with plenty of flow-vis paint on the rear wing. McLaren also rolled out of the garage with the aero rake attached. The warm, sunny conditions helped provide a decent test environment.

After less than 10 minutes, Sainz reported no power from his Ferrari, but his engineers found a fix, and the Spanish driver moved to P2 on the timing sheet, less than one-tenth shy of Russell's fastest at that point in time. The two Red Bull drivers filled P3 and P4 as hard tyres were the order of the day from the front-runners. Verstappen was the first to up the pace on the hard compound, going nearly half a second quicker than Russell.

Perez later questioned whether he had an issue, but his engineer replied "negative" and wanted to discuss it further in the garage. But Leclerc came with something more meaningful. He reported that his Ferrari felt "horrendous" as the car looked a bit nervous with the rear end. Leclerc sat midtable at this point.

Hamilton was on his fastest lap but went too deep into a corner and only managed P5. At the half-hour mark, Red Bull were the first drivers to put on the soft tyres. Verstappen went fastest, and Perez reached P3, sandwiching Sainz's fastest lap on the medium tyres. Bearman was one of the first to put on the softs as well, and he put his Haas car in P8 after the first run. His fellow countryman Norris was next on the softs: the McLaren driver went fastest by 0.024 seconds. A red flag disrupted the rest of the soft tyre runners. The session resumed after a short stoppage, and race runs were completed.