F1 Full Results | Norris tops Bahrain Grand Prix FP1 with Hamilton in P3

14:33, 11 Apr

Updated: 14:37, 11 Apr

byToby Nixon

Lando Norris has topped the first practice session at the Bahrain International Circuit after a hot session in the desert. Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton fill out the top three places.

It was a quiet session overall where teams gathered some important data for the rest of the race weekend. Notably, Kimi Antonelli was only able to complete a few laps due to an early issue with his Mercedes.

Runs began on medium and hard tyres. As the session closed out, drivers moved to softs to set their first fast laps of the race weekend, albeit in unrepresentative conditions.

See the full results from FP1 here

Full session results

This season, the Bahrain Grand Prix is not the season-opener, as that role returned to Melbourne after the three-day pre-season testing event was hosted in Sakhir. FP1 got underway at 14:30 local time (12:30 GMT) in conditions which are not representative of the rest of the race weekend.

It is very tight in the drivers' championship after the completion of three rounds. There have been three different Grand Prix winners as well as Lewis Hamilton who won the Sprint in China. Lando Norris leads in the standings ahead of Max Verstappen.

The current gap between the championship rivals stands at a single point. Oscar Piastri follows them, trailing his teammate by 13 points in total after the Australian finished third at the Suzuka Circuit.

Who were the FP1 replacements?

Six rookies took part in the first practice session of the weekend. Conditions are unrepresentative of the race, and today gives teams a good opportunity to put a rookie in the car for one of the obligatory four sessions a year that they now must complete. You can familiarise yourself with the full list of names below:

Ayumu Iwasa replaces Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

Dino Beganovic replaces Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

Frederik Vesti replaces George Russell (Mercedes)

Felipe Drugovich replaces Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)

Ryo Hirakawa replaces Oliver Bearman (Haas)

Luke Browning replaces Carlos Sainz (Williams)